Incorporated in 2007, Bhopal City Link Limited (BCLL) is a special purpose vehicle, majority owned by the Bhopal Municipal Corporation. The company was established to operate and manage Bhopal’s public transport system with private sector participation. Over the years, it has played a key role in providing organised public transportation in the city. BCLL’s fleet size has expanded from 30 buses in 2006 to over 225 buses at present (including air-conditioned low-floor buses and super-luxury Volvo buses). In addition, the company has recently started a project to operate and manage 100 radio cabs in Bhopal through a private operator.

A major part of BCLL’s successful operations can be attributed to its focus on adding new technology solutions to ensure passenger security and effective fare collection, as well as to drive efficiency in business processes and enhance profitability. “Bhopal was among the early adopters of the intelligent transportation system (ITS) to modernise its operations,” says Chandramauli Shukla, chief executive officer, BCLL.

tele.net takes a look at the current IT infrastructure and future plans of BCLL…

Current status

BCLL deploys a host of IT solutions in its operations. These include GPS-based fleet management solutions, GPS-powered billing management for operator payments, passenger announcement systems and information terminals inside buses, and passenger information terminals at bus stops.

For the implementation and management of ITS, BCLL had tied up with Harman International India Private Limited, a global original equipment manufacturer focused on telematics and vehicle infotainment solutions. BCLL actively uses cloud-based infrastructure in the solutions that have been deployed. “All the components of the ITS solution are internet enabled and facilitate real-time exchange of information,” says Shukla.

Ensuring security

BCLL has employed several measures to ensure data and network security. The data from the sensors is compressed and encoded so that it can be decoded and interpreted only on the server, which possesses the key algorithm to decode the same. The data is in binary format and hence, cannot be scanned even in the air. To ensure security, most of the hardware has a screw-less, tamper-proof design to minimise or avoid physical damage to the devices. Further, the firmware on the hardware module is protected and therefore cannot be read using any reverse logic readers.

Firewalls have been installed on devices, and the hardware BVTS, EVTS and PVTS supports the firewalls to restrict the communication to the defined end-points. All the other ports are secured from any unauthorised communication. Linux Firewall has been configured to disallow incoming connections from any port other than the designated ones on the Single Control Unit, which includes 8061 (sensor data communication) and 80 (client communication).

Snort IDS has been installed on the server to monitor spurious activity. While modifying any critical files, the operation is suspended and intervention from the technical leader is required to unlock the system. Further, a special method of data encoding is used over the Postgres database, which runs on the server to prevent anyone from accidentally reading the data even at the developer level.

For secure connectivity, the client connection is controlled using an SSL interface that is installed on the back end. The communication between the client browser and the server is encrypted to ensure that unauthorised users cannot listen to the traffic being transferred.

The SIM cards supplied along with the device are also programmed with limited functionality. All features except logging in to the network and reporting data over GPRS to BCLL’s server have been disabled to prevent any unauthorised usage. Communication from the automatic vehicle location tracking system unit to the servers hosted in the data centre is tunnelled through a private access point name, therefore enabling secure and congestion-free data transfer.

Challenges and the way forward

Developing a strong and secure communication network is not without challenges and BCLL has had its share of issues while replacing its legacy IT infrastructure. Shukla notes, “There are always challenges associated with modernising a system used to traditional operations. For us, the issues mostly relate to bringing the dependent infrastructure to a level of maturity where it can support IT modernisation. Adding new technology that embraces the existing IT investments made to ensure optimal returns on investment is also important.”

The challenges notwithstanding, BCLL is open to adopting other technol-ogies that encourage efficient functioning of its own operations and ultimately result in better public transportation facilities for Bhopal’s residents. The applications that will being deployed during the course of 2014 include management information system, integration with the existing automatic vehicle locating system, and scaling up of the existing ITS command and data centre.