Competitive Analysis

I am creating an app called South Campus Congestion—where GPS’s will be installed on all busses. The app will generate the best times for students to take the bus to and from campus to avoid congestion. Every time a student takes the bus, they will essentially “check in” thus alerting other students when a bus is at capacity.

Stanford University has implemented the new technology to determine where buses are for students that want to go to the mall or just commuting to around campus. All busses operating on the campus have global positioning satellites installed but to take their entrepreneurial idea a step further by placing the things called NFC’s around the campus (Near Field Communications). You simply place your smart phone against the NFC and information of where the bus is will pop up on your phone. It will tell you it its delayed, left already or in route. The only downside of this technology is it is not compatible for iPhone users, thus far only the Android phone.

As for my entrepreneurial idea I think the idea of having NFC’s around the campus is great but if they are not compatible with a growing species of phones then this does not help all of the SU population. I think sending alerts would be the best thing to do for Syracuse University students because it is the most accessible. It is an application that can be accessed on any market as long as you have a NetID and password.

The two ideas however are very similar, the Stanford app I can see expanding now that Apple has QR codes. Its just a matter of placing these QR codes on all bus stops, and if they want to different access points or want to build an app for all cell phones users.

Boston College also has an application called TransLoc Transit Virtualization that allows students to receive their desired bus schedules on their phones. It is compatible with all Droid and iPhone users. The application provides you with a map and a blue dot that lets you know where the bus is at all times. Students find this particularly useful because they do not have to have text alerts of where the bus is, with a simple click they can see if they missed the bus.

I like the BC app better because its user friendly. Besides adding the aspect of determining if a bus is full or not on my South Campus Congestion app I would want my app to emulate this design.