Daffodil enables Chalo to build a GPS middleware application in order to ensure 99.9% system up-time

Daffodil created a middleware application that parses the data received from 15,000+ GPS devices into a standard format (JSON format). This data is either used by Chalo mobile app to keep the users informed about the estimated time of arrival (ETA) or is used by public transport operators in different cities.

For continuous monitoring of data flowing between the device and servers, a dashboard was created for the operators and admin team in over 40 cities. Once a GPS device is configured, the dashboard displays the following information:

• It informs the operators about successful configuration (i.e. if the configured device is communicating with the server).
• On the basis of how updated the data is, data status is maintained through different signals, i.e. green denotes that the device is online, yellow denotes that a device is sending invalid or delayed data, and red denotes that the device is not sending data.
• It provides real-time device details such as device position, live location of the buses on the map with info like device ID, vehicle number, where a vehicle last was last tracked, packet status, lat/long, etc.
• The dashboard updates the number of devices that are sending data to the server. It maps the GPS devices with vehicles and informs about which device is associated with which bus, what’s the SIM number, who is the network provider etc.

As Chalo expands to more and more cities, it is required to provision new ports to redirect incoming data from devices to servers. The dashboard application has been developed in such a way that no code rewrites are required to make this happen. Configuration changes and service restarts are good enough to move data from new devices to their corresponding ports. Even if the data needs to be shared with multiple partners, a simple configuration change can put this into effect. At times when the device isn’t working, the operators can restart the devices through the dashboard.

For backup and analysis, the data in its raw format is stored on the cloud (AWS). This backup is used by team Chalo and the public transport operators for the analysis process, which may include calculating the distance traveled by each bus (in a day or week), the total number of locations sent by a device in a day, check for healthy device count, distance traveled by a vehicle, etc. This keeps the team informed about healthy device-server configuration, helps in calculating the driver/conductor incentives, etc.