Decision-Aiding Transit-Tracker Methodology for Bus Scheduling Using Real Time Information to Ameliorate Traffic Congestion in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal

The bustling urban environment of Kathmandu Valley is characterized by unprecedented traffic congestion. Due to its bowel-shaped geography, gusty winds rarely remove vehicular emissions from the urban atmosphere, making Kathmandu one of Asia’s most polluted cities, 100 city in global pollution index. Over 500,000 vehicles travel daily on over 1600 km of roads covering over 675 sq∙km urban area. Thousands of low occupancy vehicles are added each year to the urban public transit system (UPTS). Kathmandu faces worse and unreliable traffic from the current UPTS mostly with low occupancy vehicles. Around 4.5 million urban denizens, both permanent and transient residents, suffer from unreliable UPTS. Traffic rules and daily transportation schedules are rarely followed, resulting in frequent traffic jams and accidents. Once experienced, visitors try avoiding the UPTS. Tourism, annually contributing almost 8 percent to Nepal’s total annual GDP, also suffers from poor UPTS. Planners, policy makers, and politicians (P-actors) are seeking ways to improve sustainable UPTS to ameliorate stresses to family life and working hours for the urban majority. Aiming to help P-actors, we propose a transit-tracker model that uses real time information (RTI) in mobile phones and web-embedded devices to inform travelers, drivers, government authorities, and sub-admins. We argue that unreliability in the UPTS motivates urban elites to add more low occupancy vehicles, which in turn reduces already shrunken urban spaces and contributes more per capita air pollution than multi-occupancy vehicles. Since mobile and smart phones are capable of processing RTI to generate meaningful information and inform various How to cite this paper: Bhattarai, K., Yousef, M., Greife, A. and Lama, S. (2019) Decision-Aiding Transit-Tracker Methodology for Bus Scheduling Using Real Time Information to Ameliorate Traffic Congestion in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal. Journal of Geographic Information System, 11, 239-291. https://doi.org/10.4236/jgis.2019.112016 Received: April 10, 2019 Accepted: April 26, 2019 Published: April 29, 2019 Copyright © 2019 by author(s) and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/


Introduction
Planners, policy makers, and politicians (P-actors) have been struggling to effi- Transportation plays a vital role in any urban space, and it offers an opportunity to P-actors to demonstrate their performances in a concentrated area within a short time period. However, maintaining quality transportation with the least amount of road congestion has been an ongoing problem because of the addition of infrastructure and different types of vehicles each day to meet the needs of a growing population. Without proper transportation, urban denizens face imbalances between their work and domestic life, especially, because the transportation becomes unreliable and expensive [1], and adds an excessive amount of pollutants from older vehicles using leaded petroleum products.
Reliable transportation services have become a great concern in the Kath- The Kathmandu Valley is polluted from various sources. These include, but are not limited to, dust particles emitted from construction work and fine dust fumes from the clayey soils deposited on roads after each rain that get crushed into very fine pieces by hundreds of vehicles traveling over 1600 km of roads within the Greater Kathmandu City. Emissions from old-fashioned industries without electrostatic precipitators, and emissions from old vehicles using leaded petroleum products also contribute to pollution. Additionally, black carbon containing fumes originating from the cremation sites also adds to the atmospheric pollution. Urban denizens are finding it very difficult to inhale ambient air without using respirators (masks). After having experienced Kathmandu's pollution, visitors may become frustrated and be less likely to visit Kathmandu in the near future. This would hurt the tourism economy that contributes almost and widespread use of mobile phones and smartphones has facilitated information dissemination, which would be helpful to a large number of public transit riders [9]. This paper answers which transit mode, would be effective to ameliorate traffic congestion and pollution while making the transit-system of the Kathmandu Valley the most dependable for the public. Our hypothesis is that replacing low occupancy with large occupancy vehicles, and a technological shift from the use of petroleum products to an electric system would significantly reduce the health cost in the Kathmandu Valley. Also, we argue that our proposed model would be replicable not only to different cities of Nepal, but also around the world having similar spatial, demographic, and socioeconomic conditions where the operation of mono-and-metro rail systems are difficult to implement.
With this introduction, we structured our paper as follows. First, we explain a theoretical framework of how a prototype mobile application would become possible to navigate public transport mode to efficiently manage travel time at the local, region, and global scales. Second, we briefly present the scenarios of the current transit system of the Kathmandu Valley, and explain how a new mode of transit system would help improve the urban life quality. Third, we present an algorithm and a methodology explaining how our prototype operates on RTI databases. Fourth, we explain the universal application of our proposed methodology to ameliorate traffic congestion in metropolises like the Kathmandu Valley. Fifth, we present how our proposed system would help to improve the environmental conditions of the Kathmandu Valley. The last part will be the concluding remarks, followed by references.

Conceptual Framework
Almost for a century, urban planners, economists, sociologists, and architects have advanced theories on overall functioning of various urban areas. Some have hypothesized that poorly managed neighborhoods would further worsen the urban environment. Economic theories of change at the city level often emphasize population density and level of education to predict urban neighborhood environment and future improvement. Sociologists emphasize locations and social networks to predict improvements in a city's appearance. Geographers look at spatial associations to see the wellbeing of cities and their denizens, while computer scientists and mathematicians look at every urban activity both from micro-and-macro levels, especially, through modeling techniques.
One of the major components of a city is the public transit system that affects the quality of urban life [6]. The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system has become popular in many urban places because it can: 1) operate in varied topographic conditions; 2) adjust in varied socioeconomic and demographic conditions; 3) operate quickly, incrementally, and economically and its capacity can be modified even for largest metropolitan areas; Journal of Geographic Information System 4) operate in a wide range of environments without requiring expensive road construction [10]; 5) operate in a cost-effective manner in city streets in mixed traffic systems; 6) operate at a lower cost than a railway system; and 7) operate at high speeds and on high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes or on general-purpose highways and streets covering a variety of urban and suburban environments [10].
Historically, the concept of BRT first started in Chicago, U.S.A., to serve the city population where a railway system was not immediately possible [11]. Between 1955 and 1959, the model was adopted in Washington D.C. [12]; in 1959, it was adopted in St. Louis [13]; and in 1970, it was adopted in Milwaukee [14].
The reasons for the expansion of BRT were due to lower capital costs, a possibility for greater coverage, being capable of serving low-and medium-density areas, and more readily adaptable to changing land-use and population patterns than the rail systems [10]. Additionally, it was able to meet corridor demands in almost all the cities where railway system was not feasible. Earlier, BRT system barely used real-time information (RTI) because of the lack of advanced digital technology. The concept of RTI started with the evolution of digital technology when passengers started timing their departure from their origin to minimize their wait time at various stops or stations [6]. Since passengers spent less time waiting at stops or stations, passengers perceived that RTI helps them to increase their personal security particularly at night riding [15]. Ferris et al. (2010) [16] conducted a survey of web-based RTI users for the city of Seattle, Washington, and concluded that the use of RTI increased self-reported levels of personal security by 18 percent; these users remarked RTI made transit "somewhat safer" and another three percent expressed "much safer." [17] continued survey in the same city and received positive responses from over 32 percent of the web-based RTI users. The follow-up surveys in the city of Seattle, in the year 2009, by [16] and in 2012, and by [17] revealed that 92 percent of the web-based RTI users expressed being secured. Since then, the use of RTI has increased in designing almost all the urban transit systems around the globe.
Real Time Information (RTI) uses Geographic data (GD) to provide location-specific information. Any GD is linked to a specific location by the geographic coordinate system (latitude and longitude) [18], and this particular characteristic distinguishes them from other forms of data. The spatial characteristic of GD is based on the angular relationships (cross points) between latitude and longitude-what makes a point unique. Eratosthenes, a Greek Geographer, first presented the idea of having imaginary horizontal lines on the earth. The biggest circle was marked as the equator (radius 3963 miles -6378 kilometers), which was assumed to forming a Great Circle around the earth that is equidistant from the North and South Poles. Then the Tropics of Cancer (23.5˚N, the northernmost position on the summer solstices) where the sun is directly overhead dur-Journal of Geographic Information System ing the summer and the Tropic of Capricorn (23.5˚S, the southernmost positions in which the sun is directly overhead on the winter solstices) were marked. Later, astronomer and mathematician, Hipparchus  proposed that a set of equally spaced east-west lines called parallels be drawn on maps. Mathematician, Hipparchus also added a set of north-south lines called meridians that are equally spaced at the equator, but converge at the North and South Poles. The lines running east and west and the lines running north and south cross each other at different points and help to locate an absolute point on the earth ( Figure 2) based on their angular relationships [18].
The numerical range of latitude is from 0˚ at the equator to 90˚ at the poles, and is represented by N or (+) for north and S or (-) for south. In 1884, the International Meridian Conference defined the north-south axis passing through the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, a suburb of London, and called it the Greenwich Meridian or the Central Meridian. Assuming this as center, the earth was portioned 0˚ to 180˚ east from the Central or Prime Meridian and 0˚ to 180˚ west of the Central Meridian, thus, completing 360˚ of the earth as a full circle.
East longitudes are labeled E or (+) and West longitudes as W or (-). When the latitude and longitude are geometrically put together on the earth surface, they cross each other and form the geographic coordinate that helps pinpoint an object on the earth's surface based on their angular relationships. Following the oldest Babylonian sexagesimal system, the spacing of latitudes and longitudes are marked by degrees (˚), minutes ('), and seconds ('') or the decimal degree. In 1660, Sir Isaac Newton, while revealing a theory of gravity noticed earth's 24-hour rotation. Along with this discovery, he noted the varied gravitational forces, minimum at the pole and maximum at the equator. These discoveries led to the realization of a slightly longer equatorial radius (semi-major) and slightly shorter polar radius (semi-minor) axes. Simply put, parallels are not spaced equally and decrease slightly in spacing from the pole to the equator. The meridians progressively converge from the equator to a point at the North and South Poles. Also, it was realized that the distances measured between two meridians along parallels, decreases from the equator to the poles. With 24 hour a day, there is an hour difference between 15˚ longitudes (360/15 = 24); however, due to the differences in the distance between two longitudinal degrees at the poles and equator, the principle of one hour for each 15˚ longitudes does not apply.
That means the distance between two 15˚ longitudes at the poles and equator vary. This is why some places in the northern hemisphere see sun until midnight, for example in Norway. Two longitudes will be closer near the poles than at the equator. Therefore, the distance between two objects standing at two locations on similar longitudinal values at the poles will be nearer than at the equa-  A wide range of Apps application helps cities in functioning "efficiently." Apps designers gather information from high-powered decision makers from almost all parts of a city ecosystem that include city leaders, vendors, academics, researchers, and non-profit organizations through open conversations. Computer programmers utilize such data and convert them into an actionable intelligence to make informed decisions. Further, App designers help process raw data to make them usable in mobile phones, iPads, and computers using the Internet or cloud computing. Smartphones become the keys to the proposed prototype Apps operation. These Apps convert raw data into information about transit, traffic, available health services, safety alerts, and community news, traffic jams, and conditions of pollution, and put data into the hands of millions of users.
In this study, we offer some measures to improve traffic conditions in the

Study Area
Our study focuses on the capital city-Kathmandu-of Nepal. The Kathmandu Mountains and hillocks of various heights ranging from 2300 to 2800 meters (m) surround the Kathmandu Valley [19]. These pristine hills surrounding the Valley used to be serene and look blue around two decades ago, but now appear gray and hazy because of the "stagnant smog that hovers over them" [20].   [34]. "The unplanned road-widening in 2013, actually reduced footpaths in many places and gave way to vehicles at the cost of pedestrians. It is clear that these ad-hoc actions ignored the larger city planning and most importantly, the reality that Kathmandu was a highly pedestrian city [34]. In 172 locations, road is expanded without any planning even encroaching the security walls of petrol pumps. Such a practice of expanding road has made petrol pumps operations in the Kathmandu Valley into safety hazards [35]. Journal of Geographic Information System incidences. This widening has increased vehicular speeds with the increase in pedestrians' casualties [33]. Due to overcrowding of traffic followed by the poor regulations across the Valley, over 27,150 accidents incidences are recorded annually with an average of 624 deaths, and about 1157 serious injuries per year [33]. Of the deceased, around 300 are pedestrians followed by motorcyclists. Already congested traffic during the peak period (Table 1) has become much worse with the addition of many vehicles (  [29]. It is projected that many more vehicles will be added by 2021, 2025, 2031, and 2034 (Table 2). Already existing old vehicles that operate on leaded petroleum products including diesel emit a large volume    [43]. Even more harmful are the PM 2.5 particulates that penetrate deep into the lungs, irritate, and corrode the alveolar wall, "consequently impair lung function" [44], and "even penetrate [into] the blood" [45] [46]. The high concentration of CO in the blood increases carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) that leads to heart attacks, and affects the nervous system. Nitrous oxide (NO 2 ) emitting from vehicles causes bronchitis and bronchopneumonia, and SO 2 causes eye irritation and conjunctivitis [47]. These gases cause shortness of breath, chronic bronchitis, asthma, and even lung cancer  In order to discourage the rapid increase of vehicles in the Kathmandu Valley, some stringent measures such as restrictions on private car and motorcycle usages in the city center may be necessary. This can be done by pedestrianization and restricting the parking facilities, and informing people about the cost of various transport modes (Table 3). Such information would also help planners and policymakers for long-term transportation for the Kathmandu transit system. Replacing low occupancy vehicles with high occupancy vehicles and increasing their frequencies of operations would help to reduce traffic congestions, reduce the number of accidents, reduce gaseous emissions, which will help not only in improving air quality, but also in travel reliability. Simply put, limiting the number of vehicles on the street and using high occupancy vehicles with fixed schedules (Appendix B) would help in the reduction of cost, time, emission, and traffic jams. In order to achieve these goals, we have proposed to use a decision-aiding Transit-Tracker methodology for bus scheduling using real-time information (RTI).
Implementing an urban transit system will be a challenge because the transit syndicates have made a very strong comprador with various investors, who in the past have repeatedly blocked official attempts to modernize the highly inefficient bus network of the Kathmandu Valley and other urban areas of Nepal [51]. Because of their strong nexus with various political forces, these syndicates have managed to take control over the roads. In order to ensure that the future laws are favorable to them, they have been successful at sending off politicians extremely loyal to them to the parliament and different levels of governments through donations to key political figures and/or parties. Such representatives are elected either through open competition or through the proportional nomination system [52] [53]. Starting from 2012, the Asian Development Bank proposed implementing a six-year program to replace low occupancy with high occupancy vehicles [54]. There are speculations that both politicians and government employees are behind the failure of the ADB's proposed transit improvement plan. The transportation syndicate have lobbied government authorities and politicians through 3-M (money, muscle and mask-pretending to be people's representative, but working clandestinely for transit syndicates). The corruption is so rampant that Nepal currently ranked 124 out of 175 countries in the watchdog Transparency International's global corruption perception index [55]. By various means, over 10,000 buses and minibusses in various conditions ply over the streets of the Kathmandu Valley [51]. These vehicles use lead-containing gasoline and diesel at various rates when operated in different speeds (Table 3) and emit pollutants (Table 4). Since these vehicle operate below normal levels (slow speed and traffic jams), they emit tremendous amounts of fumes, but none provide efficient services.  An analysis of vehicle trips, consumption of gases, speed limits, and types of vehicles suggest that the ADB plan would have significantly reduced congestion and emissions in the transit of the Kathmandu Valley (Table 5 and Table 6; Figure 6). It would have helped bringing down the concentration of PM 2.5 particulates to below 150 μmg/m 3 . Yet, this 150 μmg/m 3 is much higher than the WHO recommended level of 120 μmg/m 3 . However, the owners of the low occupancy vehicles (National Federation of Nepal Transport Entrepreneurs-NFTE-an umbrella group for the bus operators) argued that the ADB plan amounted to "bullying small investors." The NFTE rather challenges the ADB and Kathmandu Sustainability Urban Transportation Project (KSUTP) to enter open competition with NFTE rather than replacing the low occupancy vehicles. According to NFTE, the replacement of low occupancy vehicles with high occupancy ones will be a dire injustice to the investors [53]. Amidst these controversies, the trend of vehicle registration is on the rise and projected to increase by 2021, 2025, 2031, and 2034 (Table 2). These estimates are based on the annual traffic growth around 5 percent for trucks and 7 percent for other types of vehicles.

Improving Urban Transit System Improves Urban Environment
Evidences on emissions presented for the Kathmandu Valley (Table 5 and Table   6; Figure 6) suggest a need for immediate improvements. It would have been better to introduce a railway transit system in the Kathmandu Valley, but the immediate operation of a rail transit is not possible mainly due to the lack of physical (land) spaces. Given the existing road connectivity (Table 7), it might be best to introduce a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system for an immediate solution to reduce vehicular emissions.
K. Bhattarai et al. Traditionally, Kathmandu Valley was a pedestrian city, but in recent decades people of this Valley are served with the ring road and several radically linked feeder roads (Figure 4; Table 7). There are more vehicles that ply on the streets both at peak and off-peak hours ( However, the opposite is found in the Kathmandu Valley, which is already known for compact settlements. Paris has also come up with a concerted effort to reduce the number of private cars on its streets. Paris is slashing the number of lanes on major axes and redesigning seven major squares to reduce vehicle lanes and parking. The city plans to turn the neighborhoods into car-calmed, pedestrian-and bike-friendly zones with increased pedestrians space and greenery [29]. However, due to an unmanaged public transit system with uncertainties   (Table 2) and remittance propelled economy continue [24] [25] [26] [28], the number of both motorcycles and cars will increase exponentially, and their emissions would also increase ( Table 5 and Table 6; Figure 6; Plate 2). If nothing is done to alleviate the current transit system of the Kathmandu Valley, after 10 -15 years, every activity will be restricted due to severe traffic congestion, particularly along the central area inside the ring road ( Figure   4). On the other hand, if the proposed outer ring road expansion becomes complete (Figure 7), it is certain that the level of mobility in 2021 onward will sustain the same existing level.
Proper management of public transit systems will improve the average vehicle

How Apps Can Help Improve the Proposed BRT?
According to urban literature, in France, in an average throughout a driving life, a vehicle driver spends about four years looking for a parking spot [57]. The very first step of the Apps is the calculation of distances between different points. The Haversine formula is used to calculate the shortest distance using the great-circle distance ( Figure 8) between two points over the earth's surface. It uses the "crow-flies" distance between the points, which obviously ignores the topography of the earth [18].
The great-circle distance or orthodromic distance is the shortest distance between two points measured along the surface of the sphere (as opposed to a straight line through the sphere's interior). The distance between two points in Euclidean space is the length of a straight line between them, but on the sphere, there are no straight lines. In spaces with curvature, straight lines are replaced by geodesics. Geodesics on the sphere are circles on the sphere whose centers coincide with the center of the spherical earth, and are called great circles [18]. The Great Circle distance is given by Equation (1 where, φ is latitude in radian, λ is longitude in radian, R is earth's radius (mean radius = 6371 km -3960 miles). The angle is measured in radians and trig functions are used to calculate the distances.
Our Transit-Tracker Apps use Java script and compute distances between different locations by converting geographic data (latitude and longitude) into the metric system, such as distance in miles (ml) or in kilometers (km) or in feet (ft.) or in meters (m). Also, latitude and longitudinal values are used to find location-specific information, such as where a bus is, how is the traffic condition of that place, how far apart is the bus from the location of a waiting passenger, what is the condition of a road, and how long will it take for a bus to go to the subsequent multiple stations [60]. Such information can be quantified from Equation (2).  where, "φ" is latitude in radian, "λ" is longitude in radian, "lat1," "lat2," "lon1," "lon2" are latitudes and longitudes in degrees for various locations, "c" is the angular distance in radians, If atan2 is not available, c could be calculated from 2*asin (min (1, a ) (including protection against rounding errors). No matter which algorithm is used, our proposed App utilize information of earth's major axis, minor axis, its flattening, and eccentricity factors to calculate the distances between locations with minimum error as given in Equation (3).

Normal Users
Normal users are the basic users who use the Apps to track the location of a bus-arrival and departure time-at different locations, seats availability on the bus, conditions of roads, and stops over time per station. To be exact, normal users are the passengers who track the locations of a service providing bus that is plying on the service routes. These users utilize the proposed App (Figure 9(a)) on a mobile application and can see the list of buses available (Figure 9(b)). Users can click on the image of each bus, which will redirect them to the next page where they can see the current location of that particular bus.
Passengers can track the location of a bus (Figure 9  Click here to apply to be a driver If applied for a driver's position, users can also check their inbox to see where their application status is or where this application is advancing from this point onward (Figure 11(a) and Figure 11(b)). The applicant can see the status of his/her application, such as a. Under review; b. Approved, but waiting for Admin approval; and c. Finally Approved (Figure 11).

Drivers
Drivers are the users, who are assigned the status of a driver. A bus driver would use this application in his/her smartphone, and punch limited keys to send detailed information, such as the conditions of a bus, exact location of the bus, road and traffic conditions, environmental conditions, and seat availability for normal users including older adults.

Administrator(s)
An administrator controls many aspects of this proposed BRT. An administrator is responsible for looking into who to assign a driver's position and what matter needs to be directed to the sub-administrator. The administrator would direct a driver to take certain routes, avoid certain routes, and to reach a certain station within the designated period (Figures 12(a)-(b) and Figures 13(a)-(b)).

Sub-Administrator(s)
The application may be accepted or rejected at the sub-administrator's level. The sub-administrator would first verify the authenticity of the user by various  means (phone call verifications for now, document checking manually) and then approve or disapprove for the driver position, which has to go through the administrator. This is to minimize any fraudulent characters that have to be filtered by the administrator itself. The sub-administrator would be able to add the new bus details, and publish new notices about the availability of driver's jobs from the web application. The Administrator may add a new bus service to a certain route (Figure 14(a)).
A sub-administrator issues government notices, such as opening positions for drivers, and forwarding received applications after scrutinizing all the necessary details. Sub-admins can also add and remove buses. The schematic diagram of the complete model is given in Figure 15.

Ameliorating Vehicular Emission
In order to operate the BRT in the Kathmandu Valley, we grouped the BRT transit operation in 5 steps (Figure 16). Journal of Geographic Information System

The Effects of Proposed BRT System in the Kathmandu Valley (Steps 3 and 4)
In the urban areas, a major factor of air pollution is due to vehicular emissions.  (Table   5 and Table 6; Figure 17) clearly indicate that the per capita annual CO 2 emission differ for various vehicles. For example, Car-Taxi releases 6020 grams of  schedules and transit rules in the Kathmandu BRT system, the amount of emissions can be reduced to some extent ( Figure 18).  Table 2. Our arguments are that high occupancy vehicles would help in the reduction of per capita emissions ( Figure   18 and Figure 19) and thus, tons per year ( Figure 19). Thus, looking at the overall trends for now using a BRT would be the best choice to improve the environment and transit system in the Kathmandu Valley ( Figure 19). Study by [62] revealed that a bus uses 8.7 percent less energy per passenger mile than a typical automobile such as motorcycle and/or car-taxi. If it were possible to have a train in the Kathmandu Valley, commuter trains would use 23.7 percent less energy per passenger for mile than a typical automobile. In terms of energy consumption per passenger mile (energy used to transport one passenger one mile), a BRT system is more energy efficient [62].   [69] suggests that in an average, an IRI for the urban Kathmandu ranges between 4.0 m/km and IRI 6.0/km, which is considered very high, major cause to emit high gaseous emissions. Therefore, Nepal needs a change in its transit system and must improve the conditions of roads.

Countrywide Application of Prototype Transit Tracker [Step 5]
With However, many of these urban areas so classified are characterized by rural opolises, yet, they wish to become "smart cities." These aspiring "smart cities" would need a well-planned urban transit system. Our proposed Transit-Tracker Apps would be instrumental in regulating transportation in many of the proposed smart cities throughout Nepal. The concept of smart city embraces several definitions depending on the meanings of the word "smart": intelligent city, knowledge city, ubiquitous city, sustainable city, and digital city. Many definitions of a smart city have become viral, but not one has been universally acknowledged yet [70]. An effective transit system is one of the major components to making a "smart city" a success.
We argue that our proposed Transit-Tracker Apps will help to develop a well-organized Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in many of the proposed 15 smart cities located in different parts of Nepal with one smart city in each province at metropolitan level and four proposed smart cities in the crowded Kathmandu Valley (Figure 1; Plate 3).
This Transit-Tracker will help in knowing the average speed, velocity, conditions of traffic, and arrival times to subsequent stations thus reducing the waiting times for passengers. Since many users are equipped with navigation devices, they will be able to utilize the real-time information (RTI) to track traffic conditions, for emergency services in accidents within the transportation network. Using the proposed Transit-Tracker, not only will help users to know their waiting times for the bus, but also it will guarantee the bus trips and bus-to-bus transfers with assured securities.
We expect that various investment agencies would be attracted to implement a BRT system in different smart cities of Nepal. We argue that our approach would benefit in saving travel time for users, lowering vehicle-operating costs (VOCs), improving safety and quality of public transit systems while minimizing repeated accidents.

Discussion and Conclusion
Air pollution stands as the fourth major factor for causing death worldwide leaving metabolic risks, dietary risks, and tobacco smoking behind, and 1 in 10 deaths is caused by air pollution [73]. Air pollution has great economic impact on health. At the global scale, $225 billion is spent on the health sector to cure illness resulting from air pollution annually and South Asia has spent almost $66 billion on health annually, which is approximately one percent of the Gross Plate 3. Crowded Kathmandu Valley [71]. Source: [72]. Journal of Geographic Information System Domestic Product (GDP) [73]. At the global scale (Appendix C), approximately seven million people die each year due to breathing in fine particulate matters and it is the number one preventable cause of death [74]. Such preventable diseases can be controlled through the formulation of a government's environmental policy; revising and formulating national legislation; and by improving implementation practices, especially, in part of governance and coordination, and by establishing an effective monitoring system. PM 2·5 caused an estimated 7·6 percent of total global mortality in 2015. In 2015, there were reports of 14 percent of preterm births being caused due to environmental pollution [75]. Further research revealed that in 2017, 2.7 -3.4 million "preterm births" were associated with PM 2.5 exposure [76]. In 2017, 12.6 million died due to environmental pollution of which air pollution alone killed over 7 million [41] [45] [46]. Every year, air pollution causes around 6.5 million premature deaths globally, of which, in house deaths account for 3.5 million and ambient air pollution deaths account for 3 million. By the 2040, annual premature deaths could go as high as 7.5 million [77]. Although global rates of mortality due to PM 2·5 exposure decreased from 1990 to 2015 as a result of improved air quality in high-income countries [78]; Nepal's case is the complete reverse, especially, in the Kathmandu Valley.
According to the various surveys, almost 14 percent of the Kathmandu denizens lose their lives due to an excess of exposure to open air, 25.5 percent die because of chronic bronchitis, 12 percent suffer from restricted indoor activities because of no healthy recreational facilities to easily accessible areas, and 5.5 percent suffer from asthma [66]. If the concentration of PM 2.5 is reduced to 58 μmg/m 3 , Kathmandu's mortality may go down by 9 percent and hospital admissions may decrease by 29 percent, and if it is reduced to half (44 μmg/m 3 ), Kathmandu's mortality can be reduced by 22 percent. This step would help in the reduction of $2.7 million in health costs [66]. The Transit-Tracker model we proposed here is to overcome pollution problems and make the Kathmandu Valley's environment livable. This is possible because in recent years, both individual users and the perspective network managers can use cell phones and can navigate the location of buses to reduce their transit time and reach their destination on time even after they give up the use of low occupancy vehicles. Many more people are equipped with navigation devices that can track real-time traffic conditions of the network, emergencies or accidents [79].
A mobile application can simulate the traffic conditions through a routing algorithm that can help in projecting and detecting traffic jams by providing prior information. The proposed Transit-Tracker Apps will help to locate a bus, where it is parked, how long it takes to arrive at certain location, what bus would be best to use to reach certain location, in which station the user should make a change between different transport modes, and how to continue until the final destination. We argue that our App users would find it useful in their route choice decisions. The core aspects of this application are to: 1) use live traffic data and estimations of arc (distance) travel times in the future; 2) store users' preferences in their profiles; 3) suggest paths to the users and public transport Journal of Geographic Information System modes; and 4) consider the users' preferences during the optimal path decision. Our proposed Apps would help establish an approach for mobile navigation in the Kathmandu Valley, but the caveat is the requirements of continuous data feed from different sources and a communication system between mobile phones and external servers. However, the intermittent internet services might cause problems.
Nepal needs drastic improvement in her urban transit system. With the current trend of internal migration and the trend of urbanization, over 70 percent of Nepali will live in urban areas by 2040 [41]. The number of vehicles is increasing in urban areas in every successive year. Currently, the concentration of Particulate Matter (PM 2.5 ) in urban areas of Nepal is more than 10 times higher than what WHO's [41] recommended level of 140 µg/m 3 . In 2012, the Ministry of Science and Technology of Nepal published guidelines on "National Ambient Air Quality (NAAQ)." The NAAQ's set standards for Nepal were still higher than that set by WHO [80]. Given the alarming level of particulate concentration in the atmosphere, the Department of Environment (DoE) has established environmental monitoring stations in nine different places, three stations within the Kathmandu Valley and six stations outside the valley, namely in Kavre, Pokhara, Chitwan and Rupandehi (http://pollution.gov.np) [81]. It was revealed from 24-hours observation that the average total suspended particles (TSP) in Kathmandu was 4749 µg/m 3 , PM 10 was 2928 µg/m 3 , and PM 2.5 was 226 µg/m 3 , which were much higher than WHO's recommended [82].
If this trend continues, by 2030, annual premature deaths in Nepal due to outdoor air pollution is expected to rise up to 24,000 [83]. The most alarming diseases will be due to respiratory illness, allergy, eye infection, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), Ischaemic Heart Disease (IHD), and stroke [82]. Mortality from ambient air pollution obtained from the Global Health Observatory (GHO) for 2012 for Nepal shows 9944 deaths. Of these deaths, Ischaemic Heart Disease (IHD) deaths were 33.4 percent, 32 percent from stroke, 17.8 percent from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), lung cancer was 9.3 percent, and Acute Lower Respiratory Tract Infection (ALRTI) was 7.4 percent. Females were in large number than males [46]. In 2013-2014, COPD was the most common (43 percent) cause of mortality among inpatients. Among the outpatients, the top fourth category disease was the respiratory tract (40 percent) with both upper and lower respiratory tract infections [84] and cancer (5 percent) [85]. District wise distribution within the valley showed that the highest number of patients from Kathmandu (44.4 percent), Lalitpur (10.3 percent), and Bhaktpur (10.2 percent). Many police officers who are involved in the regulations of traffic are exposed to different levels of air pollution. Traffic police who are being continuously exposed to dusty roads [86] [87] have their lungs seriously infected [88]. As of now, the Government of Nepal has made some attempts to address the environmental issues [81]. The Nepal government has been formulating policies to control environmental pollution since the 1990s, but the implementation of the legislation has not been effective enough. These include: • the Environmental Act 1996 and Regulation 1997, National Climate; The Metropolitan Traffic Police Division has directed schools and colleges in Kathmandu to carry schoolchildren before office hours. A simple approach such as carpooling has been encouraged to manage traffic generated by public offices [29]. Additionally, the government of Nepal is planning to improve the conditions of pilot routes, implement traffic management measures, pedestrianize heritage routes within the city center, and monitoring air quality in sensitive places. It is also hoped that such approaches would result in saving travel time for users, lower vehicle operating costs (VOCs), and improve in the safety and quality of the public transit system. The government intervention is essential because many of the urban transport services belong to private individuals or organizations and an improvement to the transport system will protect public welfare through a hygienic environment, and will prevent costs associated with negative externalities such as pollution and climate change [22].
Air pollution has been a huge burden to the residents of Kathmandu, threatening the lives of thousands of people of every year. It is likely that the scenario will be much worse in the coming years if immediate preventive measures are not taken on time. It is of utmost urgency to educate the common people on harmful aspects of air pollution and the necessary precautions to prevent its deadly consequences. The solution to Kathmandu's air pollution can be achieved only when the government takes stern actions to address the situation. The Con-Journal of Geographic Information System stitution of Nepal 2015 has mentioned that a clean and healthy environment should be guaranteed to the people as their primary right. The National health policy of Nepal has included air pollution as a priority research/public health agenda, but the implementation has not been efficient. Benefit of doubt can be given to government as the political stability has been established and the government has made many tall promises to address pollution issues of the Kathmandu Valley in particular and all the urban areas throughout Nepal in general.
We hope that the use of our proposed Apps using real-time would reduce passengers' waiting time for the bus, one of the most disliked elements of transit trips. It will also guarantee the bus trips and bus-to-bus transfers within the scheduled time. Many people in the Kathmandu Valley are transit-dependent and an improvement in the urban transit system would help them balance their home and work schedules.
We have examined the accuracies of our Apps at the global, regional, and local scales (Appendices B and C). Our results are matching with the ground reality.
Though the formula ignores the curvature of the earth, calculating distances and estimating travel times to different locations make no difference, especially, for smaller areas like the Kathmandu Valley. In other words, our Apps have very high accuracy for local scales. Yet, we argue that our Apps will have universal applications because it is easy to locate popular places such as amusement park, historic sites, and public places even if the Apps show locations 10-15 meters away from such places. Our scheduling would work fine because each section of the road is identified with ground reality such as road length, speed limits, traffic conditions, and junctions with feeder roads. We believe that our proposed prototype Apps will enthuse scholars, investors, researchers, P-actors to advance transportation modeling in the Kathmandu Valley and later translating to countrywide to serve in all the proposed smart cities and other general routes. Our research described in depth the technical part and the disadvantages from the proposed Apps to start urban-transit planning.

Limitation of the Research
Though we have attempted to make the Apps perfect, we are now limited to the android mobiles; we are working on fine-tuning the iOS system. In this attempt, we have not perfected in addressing unreliable network, fuel shortage, poor infrastructure, roadblocks, traffic jams, and promotion and marketing in most cases, educating people about the use of apps for services demands time.
Despite their advantages, mobile navigation systems suffer from several drawbacks such as intermittent internet services. The purpose of this article is not to describe in depth the technical part of each application and their disadvantages, but to provide a starting point for urban planning using androids. In the future, we plan to undertake surveys of public transport systems to gather information on total traffic, its composition (number of buses) and vehicle occupancy, the prevailing average vehicle speed, steps needed to improve public In our next step, we not only plan to measure distances from point to point, but also, we are planning to start-up through a baseline survey to quantify other real benefits of the project, such as time savings, accident reduction, carbon dioxide emissions reduction, air quality improvement, walkability improvement, noise reduction (with electric vehicles), and improved travel reliability. Since the government of Nepal has recently mulling to buy 300 electric buses, we expect a tremendous improvement in the traffic system of the Kathmandu Valley. Testing the usefulness of the Transit-Tracker Apps would be a win-win situation for academia, the public, and the government. Transit entrepreneurs also will find this application promising for investments in transit systems. Journal of Geographic Information System