The Delhi government joined hands with tech giant Google to provide real-time information about buses to commuters and make public transport in the national capital more user friendly.
With this partnership with Google Maps, Delhi joins the league of global cities that provide seamless, real-time information about public transport, the city's Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot said.
"People will now be able to plan their journeys to the minute," he was quoted as saying in a statement.
Gahlot expressed hope that the collaboration will encourage several other transit apps to tap into the open data portal of the transport department and create innovative solutions to make Delhi's public transport system the default choice for everyone.
Once the project gets kicked off, static and dynamic location data of Delhi buses will be available for passengers in real-time. A commuter will get information of all the routes and bus stops, all bus arrival and departure times in real-time and even by bus numbers.
"There will also be updates on any delays. This will cut waiting time and in turn reduce crowding at bus stops and increase accountability of public buses," the statement said.
"We are glad to work with the Delhi Transport Ministry in launching real-time transit information for the DIMTS agency on Google Maps. We are constantly exploring ways to make the Google Maps experience more useful and we hope the people of Delhi will benefit from having access to this information in making smart commuting choices especially in these times," said Ramesh Nagarajan, Director of Product Management, Google.
In 2018, the Delhi Government had published Open Transit Data with the technical support of Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi to provide real-time data, including geo-coordinates of all bus stops, route maps, timetables as well as the real-time GPS feeds of bus locations, that could be used by third-party app developers and researchers.
Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi (DDCD) Vice Chairperson Jasmine Shah, the transport commissioner and officials from Google India were present during the virtual launch.
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