How would you feel knowing you can schedule and estimate the complete round trip from your house to your destination and back without ever needing to bring out your vehicle or bicycle? How would you enjoy wasting not a single second of your time while transferring from an auto-rickshaw to the metro to the BMTC bus to a cab so that you manage to reach your destination well in time?
This is exactly what could get realized in case the Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) and the Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) provide their timely data about current transport scenario to the mobility startups, developing products to cover the first and the last miles of each working day. During the recently started Enroute: A mobility-as-a-service challenge some success has been shown as future tap of public transport system in Bangalore.
Live-tracking
Traffic on the road and a live tracking of public transport, and payment transfer by different methods Activated: In this case, opening of one of the two largest public transport agencies in the city The urban witnesses the BMTC bus live tracking. This means: identify the real time status of a BMTC bus currently operating in a designated route as a way of predicting bus arrivals at particular stops along its route There appears to be to similar scenarios in Namma Metro a situation where more of it would be as its netpear extends in the.
Data is published online in General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) standard on a portal called Transport Data Hub (tdh.dult-karnataka.com) which is set up by Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT). Two start-ups, namely, Namma Yatri and Tummoc won the Enroute challenge and demonstrated how various trips by bus, by Metro or by walking could be planned using the data, including trip abstracts.
GTFS as game-changing technology
Finally, opening up GTFS could prove to be a boon. “It is possible to know, at any point in time today, the location of a flight from San Francisco to Bengaluru, for e.g. if it is flying above Singapore or Alaska. However, without the GTFS data, one cannot even know if a BMTC G4 bus from M.G. Road to Bannerghatta Road is near Marble Street or Vega Mall,” explains Srinivas Alavilli, Fellow, Integrated Transport, and Road Safety, World Resources Institute India.
At this point, Namma Yatri and Tummoc are planning to incorporate new features to their products using the open data. For instance, Namma Yatri will be able to communicate with these two and will send an alert even when you are inside a Metro and are nearing your destination station. “Its app will inquire if you want an auto to be booked, if you want to walk or even some other alternative,” he explains.
In conjunction with BMTC for ticketing, day and monthly pass solutions for a long time, Tummoc will also utilize GTFS data to take further their digital inclusion with the transport corporation. “Now they have expanded to Metro and journey planning across modes. For instance, rather saying that ‘this week, I used the public transport on will not say again. For a reasonable number of rides taken on public transport, they will inform you that you qualify for a free daily pass this week. Soon, inhabitants of this country will be offered those types of innovations such as these rewards for sustainable transport behaviour.”
BMTC has already proclaimed how it is going to achieve this. At the launch of the Enroute challenge, its IT Director Shilpa M. had stated that its GTFS data is going to assist the challenge winners in increasing the dependability and ease of using various types of public transport and performing the everyday commute better. She had said, ‘We hope to witness these solutions in place, improving transport interconnectivity and access for the young people therefore growing their use of buses.’
On-boarding data to apps
Now the technology foundation is prepared to develop a strong ecosystem in which commuters may one day completely rely on public transportation.
However, as much as the establishment can give guidance on skill development, there seems to be an attraction to nationalistic economic policies that undermine the focus on learning from international markets. “I think this is also ….. the interest of the country that chalana is ’AM’ instead of always ‘challenges’ international management as in all these science and technology promotion policies there is a nationalistic allure,” says A2.
Even after this, at the end of the interview he kept on engaging the start-ups, “The start-ups should ensure that there are baseline conditions such as, and not limited to operational and physical integration of first and last mile modes with the terminal buildings of public transport agency.” He says. “….. “Having MoS only about transport is not effective. There are many such aspects that need to enhance in tandem for this MoS platform to be effective. However, it is a step in the right direction.”
Crowd-tracking inside bus
The actual data unlock the ability to monitor a BMTC bus in real time, which can be a great asset to those standing at a bus stop, and even more, to those who intend to travel long distances. However, how do you board if the bus is barricaded and filled to the fullest? A Tummoc official says it will be able to indicate how many persons on a bus are at a particular time and place with the use of ticketing.
“For example, as a commuter, when I am traveling in the directional flow from Kalyannagar to HSR Layout, I enter the source and the destination. Tummoc will give the most optimal and the least cost options. You can also look out that there might be an auto rickshaw, a taxi, or a bike or a bus and the Metro in the direction and combine all of that. After you do, you can opt from the quick and the inexpensive options,” explains the official. The addition of live tracking and crowd tracking would bring in a new milieu which was not possible without GTFS.
According to the researchers, the problem of crowd-tracking, in particular, could result in colossal impact because the peak hour crowd has reached intolerable levels in the case of the Namma Metro. Because of this, the commuters have to skip two or three trains before they can board one which is a really common sight at the Majestic interchange station. Blaming the frequency cut of BMRCL on delay in the coach deliveries, the company is currently facing a huge shortage of coaches.
Tickets-based tracking
Well, how can that open data improve the commuting conditions here? “For now, it is available information of Namma metro routes and their schedules. When up on the platform, people scan the ticket each time they enter the platform. Once we get into a ticket booking arrangement with BMRCL, it would then give us an idea for crowd tracking,” says the official. Some passengers may be willing to come in and go out at off-peak hour trains if they are informed that that the levels of people on the train will be low.
But there is an issue and it gives rise to concern. While GTFS exposes the information concerning buses, metros and ticketing, too much dependence on shared resources like cabs or autos may prove ill-advised. Every day, thousands of commuters are left finding for other alternatives when auto/cab drivers cancel the requested rides. Predictability and reliability of ‘Mobility as a Service,’ as expected, goes south, even with the use of information technology.
“Cancelled ride’ challenge
In this regard, nowadays journey planning applications are widening their first mile and last-mile connections mostly by increasing the base of their partners. “We have currently Rapido and QuickRide in our list of partners. The more partners we bring in, the easier for the commuters to get rides. We have recurrent calls and feedback from our partners. On-boarding more partners will mean if one fails there are other options to choose from,” said a spokesperson for Tummoc.
Sahakarnagar-based tech professional, Ravishankar S. has another complaint, a common problem and that is the commute. However, this becomes more exasperating when it takes his daughter more than two hours to return home after reaching Kengeri by the bus, having traveled from Mysuru. “She reaches Kengeri, takes the Metro, and switches trains at Majestic to get to Goraguntepalya station. For ₹250, haggling is inevitable, but only 10 km distance was made with auto drivers who comfortably sit at the knife’s edge of their apps at the station. At times, she would take a bus but waits for over thirty minutes,” he describes so well.
Still, he holds that there could be applications that could cover all types of transportation from beginning to the end, including the last mile but isn’t entirely certain about the auto drivers keeping to the time and cost. “Incorporating autos will be tough, but if they can manage that it would be great. As of today, I have seen prices of around ₹100 for about a distance of 1.5 to 2 km distance of autos from Bhadrappa Layout to Sahakarnagar,” says Ravishankar summing up the woes which millions of Bengalureans face on their daily commutes.
