Cover

IT in public transport

Public transport and traffic managers have started using IT keeping mind the comfort and safety of commuters in cities that are choking for lack of efficient transportation. By Kushal Shah

IT is at its best when it is used for the welfare of citizens in making their lives richer. One area that is worth exploring is the public transport system and its caretakers, viz., traffic authorities.

IT in areas such as bus and rail transport can be used in various ways. Such facilities are by large implemented to ease the lives of harried commuters. Be it in-house development or an outsourced project, these government run entities are on their way to full IT adoption for administration as well as for better services. The need to be on par with the rest of the world has encouraged our bureaucrats to take the technology route. Starting from microprocessor based ticket vending machines to RFID based smartcards a host of initiatives are paving the way for a high tech commute.

Be it BEST (Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport), the Indian Railways or the traffic police –managers of transportation are running growing IT setups and have some ambitious plans for the outside world. Mumbai’s suburban railway carries more than six million passengers on a daily basis, among the busiest rail networks in the world. On the other hand BEST handles more than 4.5 million commuters a day in a tangled web of roads which reaches almost every part of the city. Serving millions of daily commuters in a city like Mumbai is not an easy job. The manual management of the metro railway network or for that matter BEST (Mumbai) seems an almost unimaginable task. Technology must necessarily play a role in such vast undertakings. The role of technology in public transport is one of the most significant examples of IT in governance and a high tech age in India. “If we see public transportation and other modes of transport on the road, we find that vehicles are increasing every single day but road lengths are not moving in the same direction but in fact road sizes are decreasing. To manage this situation we need some automation and some level of technical support to administer it in a better way,” says SC Mathur, Joint Commissioner of Police –Traffic, Mumbai Police.

Administrative comfort

IT has always been an integral part of government owned organisations. All have been using IT in some way or the other for quite some time now, starting from managing daily accounts to having ERP systems in place to run such huge operations. For administrative purposes, BEST started an Electronic Data Processing (EDP) department way back in 1968. At that time they used to hire computer hours to work on IBM 1401 machines and since then they have housed mainframes, mini computer systems running UNIX as well as servers running Novell NetWare and Windows 2000. Indian Railways on the other hand set a separate entity called the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) in order to handle its computer related activities in 1986.

Presently, these entities are using IT systems in more ways than one. BEST is using systems for everything from material inventory to billing electricity consumption. They have applications such as payroll, ticket accounting, daily vehicular returns and financial accounting system. They are using applications in the traffic department for planning bus routes and doing load factor calculations. An Online ticket accounting system (OLTAS) is being used for managing the daily collection of tickets and revenue generated therewith. These implementations are lightening the burden of government employees and helping them administer processes in a more accurate and faster way which in turn increases overall productivity of the entire organisation.

If we are to peek into the Railway’s administrative IT usage, there are islands of computerisation in a sea of manual work. Some applications like financial management, materials management, payroll, freight & passenger accounting and operating statistics are run in batch processing mode at the EDP centre. Apart from these, many other applications are used for easing operations.

Delivering information via the Web

In the Internet Age getting information at the click of a button is commonplace. This has encouraged public transport entities and traffic managers to make every bit of information available on the Web so that citizens can help themselves.

The Indian Railways have started various activities on the Web. Their Web site facilitates activities such as ticket booking, PNR status check, train status enquiry, and lets you look up the train schedules. These and more services are able to provide the fastest way to interact with the railways and help reduce congestion at the station for manual activities. “The passenger reservation system of the Indian railways is among the largest in the world. They provide facilities such as e-tickets and i-ticket where you can get tickets delivered at your doorstep or take a printout,” says the Central Railways spokesperson and chief PRO, Shrinivas Mudgerikar. Apart from long distance journeys, Indian Railways provides online season pass booking facility for Mumbai suburban rail commuters which saves time for commuters who would otherwise waste time in long queues. As far as train tracking goes, the Web site provides a graphical interface for some trains whereas for others it provides tabular information. The Railways Web site is completely managed by CRIS. Apart from the commuter facilities, the Web sites of Indian Railways give sufficient information about various aspects of the Railways.

BEST uses its Web site primarily for delivering information to the public. This site gives information about bus routes and buses between locations. Getting information on all the routes of such a complicated network is exactly what BEST commuters want. BEST has about 6,000 buses which run from one end of Mumbai to the other on multiple routes.

A newly launched Web based service from the Mumbai Traffic police provides early notifications of traffic jams and routes to be avoided. It also has e-groups for the same in which you can register to get e-mails with traffic updates. Apart from that, the site has a facility called e-Complain, using which citizens can launch a complaint about various problems faced by them while travelling by Taxi or rickshaw or other modes.

Taking the smart way out

As we opt for cashless transactions, starting from shopping malls to hospital bills to e-bookings; every transaction is being carried out with plastic cards with some technology or the other embedded in the same. No one likes to be burdened with responsibility of carrying money and especially the pain of carrying change for travelling by public transport. Looking at that and other benefits attached to card based transactions, BEST has launched smart card services for its commuters. This card has a chip embedded on it carrying all relevant information. These cards come as the counterpart of rail passes offered by the suburban railways. The chip inside covers details such as the route permitted and the validity of the card. These smart cards are checked with the help of a handheld device by the bus attendant (conductor). If the card is valid, the conductor gets a green signal and card is authenticated. BEST has about 6,000 handhelds for conductors. “We have set up this service not for low pricing but for unlimited travel on the specified route in any bus with any number of changes which makes it a very useful tool for commuters,” says Uttam Khobragade, General Manager, BEST.

To help commuters in the best possible way, BEST and the Indian railways are joining hands. A collaborative project is underway to offer a common smart card for both bus and train journeys for commuters in Mumbai. This RFID enabled smart card will work as a prepaid card which will allow citizens to travel in any mode without worrying about cash in their pockets. In order to reduce the rush during peak hours and to improve service this collaborative work is taking place. “During a rail journey, these cards will be scanned by a machine which will be positioned near the ticket counter and other locations. The same procedure will have to be repeated by the commuter at the exit and depending on the distance covered, the balance on the card will be adjusted. To check the honesty of the commuter ticket checkers will be provided with handheld scanners,” explains Mudgerikar.

On the other hand, BEST will need an additional technology to measure the distance covered. All the buses will use GPS devices to track the current position of the bus which will record the IN and OUT stations and money will be deducted from the card accordingly. “Because of this GPS enabled RFID smart card facility, commuters will be able to travel hassle free and in future they will also get timely information about the movement of buses so that they can schedule their journey accordingly. IT in such initiatives is focused more on commuter satisfaction and comfort,” says Khobragade. The money matters of refills for these cards will be managed by a bank and this facility will be available by next financial year but the pilot implementation will be done in July this year.

Wait, there’s more

There are various other facilities and initiatives provided by these authorities which ensure a hassle free and safe journey. We have online reservation facility for the passengers who plan their journey in advance, but the biggest rush is for instant journey tickets in railways. Passengers who do not hold a pass or a reservation can make use of some established facilities and can use some in future which are still in their pilot phase. One such implementation is of microprocessor based coin operated ticket vending machines. Using this device, commuters can avoid standing in line and get the ticket by themselves by inserting the stipulated coins. Currently this is available at a few suburban railway stations and the full implementation depends upon the public’s response. The other prominent facility is that of the coupon validating machine which has been implemented across stations and has seen tremendous response.

For traffic management on the road, the Mumbai traffic police recently started various technology based activities. They have started installing CCTV cameras at 100 locations across the city out of which 45 are already in place. These cameras capture video and the streamed content is sent to the traffic control room in real-time. They serve as a useful tool for monitoring various activities happening at prominent junctions. One of the most widely seen facilities these days is that of variable messaging. The traffic department has installed 30 such boards to give updates about the traffic situation ahead and at times used it for creating awareness.

SMS 3040 is an SMS based interactive service offered by the Mumbai traffic police that as of now is used to send complaints but can later be used to retrieve real-time traffic information and other purposes. “We are doing our best to connect to people using technology. Using flexible and dynamic technologies, we are giving the maximum benefit to the citizens of Mumbai. Apart from e-mail, variable messaging boards and SMS facility, we are spreading awareness through FM on a daily basis,” explains Mathur.

Room for improvement

We have useful IT-powered facilities for transport, but there are many things which are yet untapped or mired in problems. A major one is ATC (Area traffic control). ATC will install sensors at various locations in the city and enable the controllers to have better control over the traffic situation. “ATC will rationalise and optimise the use of signals and will balance the traffic load by making the signals work on the basis of traffic on the route and not the way they work now, on the basis of elapsed time,” says Mathur. There are various other facilities which can be built on the ATC platform. From a commuter’s standpoint, he gets a holistic view of the city’s traffic scenario and can plan his journey accordingly and for controllers it is easier to manage the traffic efficiently. One more interesting use of this ATC is that there are plans to RFID enable BEST buses so that they can be given priority for faster commutes.

Technologies will keep coming but it is up to the governing bodies to decide which one will benefit commuters the most and what can make travelling a pleasant experience rather than a time consuming exercise.