ShareThisThe main MTC study is taking a bit more time. Meanwhile, we are requesting MTC website embrace the power of Web 2.0 and also share the GPS data online. Once the data is available online, a lot of passengers can plan their city commute without having to wait in the stops.
Illustrative MTC Logo
MTC is one of largest transport corporations in India , operating almost 3200+ buses carrying around 5.2 million passengers / day! Even minor tweaks to improve passenger ridership experience would have a profound impact. The MTC operates 600+ GPS enabled buses and many A/C buses, which were introduced in a measure to make more 2&4 wheeler rider switch to this mode. But the schedule of these buses remains largely unavailable to the possible end- user and hence there are few takers in some parts of the day.
One of first logical steps is to make this information available for the public to use. The initial work is to make the schedule data available in General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) (more like a a standard for transit data). Once this data is available in the public domain, individual developers can create 3rd party applications. With so many buses running across the city, the possibility of creating useful applications is limitless.
For example, you could select your origin and input “hospitals” and get a list of all the hospitals that are within walking distance, along the bus route. Or input your budget for coffee and the application could tell you the list of all the buses you can take to reach a coffee shop with your budget! You could also know how much eco friendly you have been by taking the public transport system. Further still, you can plan your own ‘Discover Chennai’ trail, you select the historic spots you want to visit and the application would give you the best route along with timings!
This can be shared, stored, mailed, sms’ed for wider distribution. We have currently put up a pilot website to illustrate the possibilities that MTC website can have. For those who want to access the gtfs feed for the 7 pilot routes, click to download. (the routes are D70, A1, M70, 5A, 21G, 21L, G18)
This would also help increase ridership and reduce traffic delay that is plaguing Chennai, as more would move to public transport systems.
Very interesting project. I notice from the informational video that you have access to the MTC data on Google Maps to plan trips. Is this data public or part of a private beta? Presently, Google has the MRTS data, and it would be fantastic if they could get data for MTC and the suburban railway lines (Beach – Tambaram, for instance). Is there a plan to integrate these modes of transport for trip-planning purposes? That is, could a journey be completed partly by bus, then by MRTS and finally on a suburban line?
Also, does data exist to show that these improvements to the site will result in more people taking the public transport? As far as I know, most people don’t plan their journey on mapping websites. Few, if any, I imagine visit the MTC site. Have you conducted any surveys to see if people will be more enthusiastic about public transport because of more useful website?
Finally, one thing that I’d love to see is being able to get information about real-time location of the bus on my phone through a voice recording or an SMS – I think this might be the most useful way of improving MTC’s quality of service because publishing time tables for bus routes in a city like Chennai is pretty close to impossible. However, with GPS data, I’m guessing the location of the next bus on a particular route can be made available, as well as the time it’ll take to get to a specified bus stop.
I came across this website http://www.alert.net.in/eta few months back and has live data of MTC bus timings. You might be aware of this already, if not here it is. Make sure you open the site in Internet Explorer.
MTC must leverage the suburban trains. All stations must be connected by MTC. They must act as feeder service to the trains . Also they must engage the private people like tata magic and mini buses and organise trips . they must identify routes which cannot be covered by them and hand over them to small van and tata magic operators. WIN WIN situation for both. EG Kodambakkam station to West Mambalam Chetpet station to Sterling road. Nungambakkam station to Arcot road