Bus users in the city can expect to real time information on the services of the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) soon. The BMTC is in the final stages of testing its infrastructure and expects to share its data by the end of May.
The data, generated by thousands of buses moving across the city, promises to help understand traffic patterns, punctuality and other parameters like skipped bus stops and breakdown locations.
Collection of the data began last year when BMTC launched its Intelligent Transport Solution (ITS) project in which GPS devices were fixed in each bus.
At that point, BMTC offered to share the enormous amount of data that was being generated for research. Most will be real-time data.
“We are in the process of testing our infrastructure. We should be done in the next 10 days,” a senior BMTC official said.
Possible uses
The data can be used to develop various apps to, among other things, predict seat availability based on the number of tickets issued. While this particular app would take a lot of time to develop, there are many more applications which could be immediately launched with important information for consumers.
The best part is that BMTC does not want to charge for the data. “There will be a vetting process in which a committee would consider requests for data from various organisations and members of the public, and approve those which BMTC feels are genuine,” the official said.
Although the BMTC has its own app, which provides information on bus schedules and tracking, many feel that the user interface could be made much better if private developers are allowed to access real-time data.
Similar data sharing by public transport/mass transport companies across the world has helped with traffic density studies and is generally considered to be a practice that helps civic agencies.
Data sharing likely to include
Bus location
Bus movement details
Bus stop details
Delays (if any)
Most popular route
Least popular route
