Airtel powers traffic information system

By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 07 June 2007, 19:30 IST
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Bangalore: Bharti Airtel, a private sector provider of telecommunications services today announced the launch of India's First Transport Information System project in Bangalore in partnership with the Government of Karnataka. This project, implemented jointly with the Bangalore city traffic police and Mapunity Information Services, aims at providing easy, convenient and real time traffic updates. It uses Airtel's mobile network to cover all roads across Bangalore and provide real-time updates on traffic to users. Airtel has joined hands with Mapunity Information Services, which, develops geographic information systems, and services for governance and public affairs to jointly develop an urban traffic information system to be made available on mobile phones and through the Internet. Mapunity's predictive and analytical algorithms would then develop live traffic information using the various inputs, and these would be made available through Airtel's phone network. Airtel has provided the capital expenditure for setting up the micro towers and the data for 'Travel time estimation', based on which Mapunity has designed a predictive algorithm to anchor and co-ordinate technology and output the information. Bangalore Transport Information System (BTIS) will use Airtel's mobile network to keep the public informed and updated in order to facilitate and steer towards optimal road choices. BTIS will bring together a wide range of information located on the urban map of Bangalore city which is governed by the state-of-the-art technology that is based on recording traffic densities in real-time. It will make accessible to Airtel mobile users in order to facilitate their easy and convenient travel. BTIS enables Airtel mobile users in Bangalore to ascertain 3 types of vital information, which would make a big difference to their commuting plans within the city: By sending a simple SMS of a location specific code, users can get the most recent log of traffic status from that location instantly. They are able to get estimated travel times. To access the information, an Airtel mobile customer needs to type in as follows and send the SMS to 54321. Airtel has also provided BlackBerry Handheld Devices to the Bangalore Traffic Police. This deployment empowers them to instantly access the history of traffic offenders, update their records and in real time prepare a charge sheet against any traffic violation.