BMTC schedules on cell phones

BMTC schedules made available on cell phones
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: Schedules of Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) buses are available online on Reliance mobile phones as part of R-World service offered by the cellphone service provider.

Speaking at the launch of the service on Tuesday, Mahesh Prasad, president, Applications and Solutions Group, Reliance Infocomm, said the service would provide information of over 900 bus stops and 400 routes covering 9,000 sectors. Details of suburban routes would soon be added, he added.

The company has tied up with BMTC to offer the R-World service wherein the commuter chooses the starting area and destination of his journey and is presented with different options of routes available along the entire map. After selecting the route number, the user gets end-to-end information of the area from where the bus starts, frequency, names of stops and where the commuter has to board, name of the destination stop, first bus and last bus timings. A stop-to-stop search is also offered along with an indirect search for commuters with a break journey. The selected route and full route of a bus are available at finger tips.

BMTC Managing Director Upendra Tripathi said the Corporation would add 200 buses to its fleet by October end.

Since Honge oil, the 10 per cent mixture being used as bio-fuel for the buses, now costs less than diesel, BMTC plans to use it for its entire fleet.

Tripathi said BMTC Board had approved the installation of Global Positioning System (GPS) in 700 buses in the first phase, to be expanded to its entire fleet gradually. GPS would enable online access to 16 variables about the bus, including its location and speed at any given time and LCD monitors within the bus would provide passengers the location and other valuable information. Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) MD Sreenivas Murthy also spoke.