More than half of the world’s population doesn’t have the ability to access the internet. In India, just 18% of individuals and 15% of households – out of a total population of 1.2bn – are online.

Increasing the number of people that can get online is a priority for the Indian government, and to solve the issue the “Digital India” initiative is trying to get more people online.

But growing internet use is complex and slowing. Last week the UN’s Broadband Commission said worldwide targets to get 4bn people online by this year had been missed. In fact, the Commission said that targets have been missed by so much that it is unlikely that the number will be hit by 2020.

To help tackle this issue in India, Google has stepped in.

The company has announced its intention to provide “high-speed public Wi-Fi” in 400 train stations across the country. Work on the project will begin pretty rapidly and the search company wants to have the first 100 stations online by the end of 2016.

“Even with just the first 100 stations online, this project will make Wi-Fi available for the more than 10 million people who pass through every day,” said Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai wrote on the company’s blog.

“This will rank it as the largest public Wi-Fi project in India, and among the largest in the world, by number of potential users.”

Google went on to say the service will be free at its start point, but the longer term goal would see the system being made “self-sustainable”. Presumably this will mean a fee will be charged for users who want to use the service in the future, or it may see commercial partner and rail operator RailTel, which is heavily involved in the project, taking on some of the cost. India’s first train station to get Wi-Fi was Chennai Central, which had a basic Wi-Fi system allowing 512kbps of bandwidth installed last year.

Earlier this year the country’s oldest station started to provide free Wi-Fi for up to 30 minutes a day.

The move from Google and RailTel will be welcomed by rail travellers in the country, as long journeys can lead to significant times of no connectivity; some journeys across the country can have a duration of up to 20 hours.

It will allow travelers to check their online accounts and download any data that may be useful to them at the intervals in their travels. The country’s Prime Minister told India’s Economic Times that he wants to introduce paperless transactions to the country as well as improving its internet infrastructure.

“We are expanding our public Wi-Fi hotspots. We want to ensure that free Wi-Fi is not only there at airports, but also on our railway platforms,” he said.

The idea of introducing free Wi-Fi to 400 of India’s stations was first floated in 2014.

Wi-Fi access at train stations around the world varies from country. Germany’s Deutsche Bahn has more than 100 stations with free Wi-Fi, 150 London Underground stations provide free Wi-Fi to commuters and more than 25 stations in Scotland provide access to their users.