Chennai: Identifying the right public transport, particularly MTC bus will soon be a thing of the past. IIT-Madras has developed a new GPS enabled technology and mobile app. All you have to do is download the app and feed the boarding and destination point in the city.
The app (named Raft) will provide real time information about the immediately available service among MTC bus, EMU and metro train and the approximate time of travel.
The technology (mobile app) developed by a team led by associate professor Lelitha Devi, transportation engineering division, department of civil engineering, IIT-M will be launched on November 15.
Three IIT alumni who launched Geotagg, a company developing solutions to urban transportation problems and currently incubated at IIT-M incubation cell, has installed GPS equipment in around 150 buses covering 25 routes in the city.
“The data sent from the buses fitted with GPS equipment will be collated at the laboratory on the campus. The real time movement of the buses and approximate arrival at a particular bus stop on the route will be available online,” said Akhilesh Koppineni, one of the founders of Geotagg.
The technology works in two days. One, you choose the bus route number and select a bus stop on the route in the drop down menu.
The app will provide the exact position of the bus and the approximate arrival at the selected bus stop. Two, a person has to feed the boarding and destination and the app will provide the list of buses, trains and metro rail services available and their timings.
“We have sourced the stops, routes, fleet size from MTC. So far, we have mapped 3,500 stops. Roughly, another 2,000 has to be covered,” Akhilesh noted adding that they have also obtained the schedule, network and routes of all EMU trains. Interestingly, such technologies were introduced a decade back abroad.
When asked, a senior MTC officer said “Let them give their finished project. At least half a dozen such Android apps designed by students are available free of cost in the market. This is not new,” he added.
