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MTC website to help keep track of buses
CHENNAI: How convenient would
it be to know the exact arrival time of a
Metropolitan Transport Corporation bus along a
particular route at a bus bay nearby? With a new
MTC website taking shape, you might soon be able
to track all the 600-odd GPS-enabled buses in
its fleet in real-time through an online
interface. A pilot project has already been
completed and seven routes have been mapped by
Chennai City Connect, an NGO working on issues
concerning the city's transportation, who are
acting as consultants for the MTC. The schedule
data of those routes is now available in General
Transit Feed Specification (GTFS). It is a
standardized format used by Google Transit,
which is a public transportation planning tool,
that overlays real-time data from the buses on
to Google Maps. Daniel Robinson, a coordinator
at Chennai City Connect, said “The idea is to
publish all the data in a usable, open format so
that individual developers can create third
party applications.” For example, Mr. Robinson
says you can plan your own ‘Discover Chennai'
trail by selecting the historic spots that you
want to visit and the application would give you
the best route along with timings. According to
him, with more than 5.2 million passengers using
MTC services every day, even minor tweaks to
improve the passenger experience would have a
profound impact.
The websites of ‘Washington Metro' and
‘Transport for London' offer multi-modal trip
planning services. That is, an option is
available for commuters to plan the trip using
two different modes (bus and train) or two
different buses. Immediately after the websites
were introduced, public transport ridership in
the two cities went up by 18 per cent, says
Mr.Robinson.
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Another related study being
undertaken at the Transportation Engineering
division in Anna University will not only let
commuters know when a bus would arrive at the
stop, but will also provide information on
whether the bus is crowded. Many MTC buses have
started adopting electronic ticketing machines
that digitally register passenger details,
including boarding/alighting times. The GPS
on-board unit in MTC buses transmits the
position of the vehicle every 10 seconds. “If
the ticketing machines ‘talk' to the GPS onboard
unit through Bluetooth, occupancy details can be
sent back to the control tower through GPRS,”
said a senior Transportation professor at Anna
University. A pilot implementation is being
carried out on two MTC routes. “Using the data,
the number of passengers in a bus at any given
point of time can be broadcast online. It will
also reveal how people are travelling in the
city.” According to him, by integrating
real-time tracking with passenger details, bus
movements can be evaluated. “The route which is
carrying the maximum number of people at a
particular time can be monitored from the
central control room. Identifying overloaded
buses will become easy. It will also provide a
scientific rationale to operate additional
services,” he added.
