Google Maps: one million public transit stops worldwide

[Vijay Patil]

Google is celebrating the fact that they NOW have official data of 1 millions bus/train (any public transit) stops. See detail blog post below:

http://googleblog.blogspot.in/2012/08/google-maps-now-has-schedules-for-more.html
Since 2005, we’ve collaborated with hundreds of transit authorities around the world to make a comprehensive resource for millions of riders to find out which bus, train, subway or tram can take them to their next destination. Today, Google Maps has public transportation schedules for more than one million transit stops worldwide, in nearly 500 cities including New York, London, Tokyo and Sydney.

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http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/transit/text.html#mdy
India

1. Bengaluru Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation Ltd
2. Chennai Chennai MRTS, Southern Railway, Metropolitan transport corporation (Chennai) LTD
3. Delhi Delhi Integrated Multi Modal Transit System, DMRC, Northern Railway, Delhi Metro Rail, Delhi_Transport_Corporation
4. Gujarat Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service
5. Hyderabad APSRTC, Hyderabad Multi Modal Transit System, MMTS
6. Kolkata Kolkata Metro, KMRC, Eastern Railway, CSTC, CTC
7. Mumbai TMT, Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation Ltd, NMMT, BEST, KDMC
8. Pune Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Ltd., PMPML

Good news is, over last few years many agencies have joined. Some NEW things that I observe:
+ Mumbai local trains schedule now accessible from maps.google.com. Also BEST have joined in. So results of your query may combine local train + bus.
For example, try this in maps.google.com -> Directions -> Select public transit.
From = IIT, Powai, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
To = Gateway of India, Apollo Bandar, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Result includes bus to Kanjurmarg and then local train to CST and then another bus to Gateway of India.

I do not know who is responsible for submitting local train schedule, may be people at Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation Ltd.?
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Good to see TMT, NMMT and KDMC also have joined.

Good news from Delhi: DMRC have joined. Anyone from Delhi on this forum, have used google maps to find a desired trip? Please share you experiences if you have used this service.

You will also notice that results returned to your query are very very fast (no matter how big is the schedule) and I can tell you that no other software company in the world (except Google) can return you the results so fast for such queries and free of cost !!

[Vijay Patil]

For Delhi: I meant new agency to join is DTC.
I do NOT know the difference between these 3 : DMRC, Northern Railway, Delhi Metro Rail,

[Anil Risbud]

Dear Vijay,

Thanks for sharing the info!! It is a great initiative by google and I recently used the google maps facility actively  (e.g. to choose a convenient route) while travelling using public transport, when on a short tour in the US. The bus would arrive on the dot on a secluded stop in a thinly populated area, and once we just saw it leaving, when it came and went 3 minutes earlier

Mumbai trains, yes. Not sure to what extent BEST or PMT buses run on time, but the route info would be of use anyway...

A comment on google:

=================

As everyone knows, fast searches have been their USP from the beginning so I am not surprised.

Ram Shriram, who was one of the early angel investors who supported them, shared this story about google during an interview on CNBC:- Apparently, the two founders (while still in college or just out of it) approached yahoo (and other search engines) on Shriram's advice. Yahoo marketing turned them down, saying the fast, pointed searches would reduce Yahoo's revenue, since users will never need to go to pages 2 onwards, so Yahoo would miss lots of advertising revenue!!!! In hindsight, both the predictions (though unconnected) turned to be correct...

Shriram sensed the foolishness (and the opportunity) and advised them to go solo by promising to get Venture funding.

The rest is historry...

p.s. I am hoping that a google/facebook like co. emerges from India...

best regards,

Anil

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[Vijay Patil]

Thank you Anil.

Next step would be to assess/measure the impact/usage of this project. How many search queries are being received by this service in maps.google.com? Can we have city wise count (for example: how many queries for Pune region in a month)?
Anyone doing research on this topic may get in touch with Google and find out the numbers

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Off topic comments:

About having such companies in India, actually even before Google started this initiative (2005), very interesting prototype (in 2000) was done using BEST schedule data, at IITB by Prof. Abhiram Ranade and his students. See:
http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/navigator1/index.html

To convert such prototypes into real products (that serves millions of users like Google does) you need:
+ Support (money) and enthusiasm  from early customers (For example: BEST could have paid for this software, but they never did).
+ Investment (money) from rich people passionate about new products (and not just for Gold or real estate) and a risk appetite.
+ Market (that appreciates such new products and actually buys them).
Sadly it will take many many years for India to reach there.

-- Vijay

[Anil Risbud]

Hi Vijay,

A one-line answer for your off-topic comments is that the real constraint is a lack of a culture (both social culture and investment culture) that encourages risk-taking. Of late, things are changing though. Suggest you should start attending TiE Pune meetings that are held regularly. Will write to you about details separately.

best regards,

Anil Risbud

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