Mumbai: The Navi Mumbai Municipal Commissioner, Tukaram Mundhe, on Wednesday announced the launch of NMMT Tracker mobile application, as part of its e-governance initiative.
The application is expected to help commuters check real-time location of the buses, and also avail information on nearby bus stops, bus routes. Commuters can also share travel information via WhatsApp and SMS, and set their favourite route and alarms for buses.
The Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport (NMMT), as part of an Integrated Intelligent Transport System (IITS), has incorporated the feature of a bus tracker on NMMC e-Connect application. The NMMT Tracker is for users who do not wish to install NMMC e-Connect.
Th ₹10 crore NMMT Tracker project is being developed in three phases. It started in December last year and has completed its first phase. The application is expected to be fully operational by the end of May this year.
Mr. Mundhe said, “Our main motive is to reduce the carbon footprint of the city, for which, we will make foothpaths and strengthen public transport. We want to motivate the citizens to use public transport more so that the city’s climate can be maintained.”
He added, “We are trying to make the NMMT more demand driven, like Uber and Ola, instead of being a supply-driven system. [Considering] various suggestions [made by] public, we have made changes in the bus routes and we have noticed a good change in the income. We will keep introducing new routes depending on the suggestions.” The NMMT made losses of ₹18 per kilometre last year. It came down to ₹9 per kilometre, and is expected to reduce even more through this application.
Monitoring system
Mr. Mundhe also said a command and control centre will be set up in Belapur, along with a system to monitor the buses and keep a check on their speed. “The application will alert the monitoring person in case of over speeding and if a bus misses any stop. Every complaint lodged by commuters through the application will be looked into and action will be taken, even if it’s about torn seats or misbehaviour of conductors.”
The NMMT staff is being trained to use the system and to log in the entry of the buses and their schedule. Mr. Mundhe said, “Systematic Operational Management, better fare management, more transparency, and prompt incident management — in case of any untoward incident — will be some of the benefits that the administration will have with this application.” With a two-way communication between control room and bus drivers, the officials can immediately instruct drivers if they are found flouting any rules or if any complaints are raised during the journey by commuters.
Mr. Mundhe said, “Residents can check the number of seats available in the bus. The smart cards that we will introduce can also be used for metro, BEST, local buses, and mono rails.”
