Bengaluru: Trainspotters make local train fun! Railjini' app for suburban rail users
Bengaluru: A bell emoticon for Bellandur, Burger bun for 'Bun'aswadi, a car emoji for Carmelram, red heel for Heelalige and house for Hosur railway station, are the symbols techies have been using for daily commute on suburban trains.
“Ever since software professionals became aware of the benefit of suburban trains on Yeshwanthpur-Hosur line connecting the IT corridor, they created the Trainspotters group a few years ago on Telegram Messenger application," said Suhas Narayan Murthy, one of the users.
"To make it easier to identify, there are emoticon references for trains, for example, a pair of eyes for Kannur Express (kannu in Kannada means eye). Bots get information from the railways website on current status of a train or fellow commuter's update about the status - a down arrow marks the station reached and a cross mark indicates that the train is at a level-crossing," Suhas explained.
Techies who have embraced suburban trains to commute to work, can look forward to a full-fledged smart phone app. Rakesh Tergundi, who works at Mobijini, along with a group of colleagues, put their heads together to create Railjini, a Bengaluru suburban rail application.
"The coding and testing is finished and we will have a review meeting next week. This is how it works - in case you are in Sadashivnagar and need to get to Sarjapur, Railjini will tell you where the nearest station is, the trains available and when they arrive," explained Rakesh.
He said, "We are trying to integrate it with the Railways API server, to get real time information on train location. However, this is taking time due to government procedures. Until this happens, apart from GPS usage, we selected a few volunteers who have agreed to share their locations while commuting, so the user can use the data," Rakesh said, adding that the anonymity of volunteers would be respected.
Expected to launch on public domain by the end of this year, the app will cater to all lines, including Whitefield-Bangarpet side, Bellandur-Hosur, Tumakuru, Yeshwanthpur, Mysuru and the rest of the city's South Western Railway division.
The team putting in their efforts purely out of interest is also keen on securing the last-mile commute from the station. Currently in the pipeline, they have reached out to app based cab companies Ola and Uber, so rail passengers can book and share a cab to reach their offices.
