india

Updated: Sep 07, 2019 21:17 IST

Lakhs of commuters travelling on the buses of Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) will be able to plan their journey better from next week as the public transport body is planning to launch its first mobile app on Monday.

Under the Intelligent Transport Management System (ITMS) project funded by the Mumbai civic body, BEST has developed this new app. The mobile app will allow real-time tracking of buses for passengers.

BEST has begun trials of the mobile app, making the beta or trial version of it available to the public on Google play store, from August 26, 2019. It also collected feedback from experts, students and passengers for improving the app.

Apart from allowing the passengers to find the real-time location of the bus, the mobile app will help them in knowing the expected arrival time of the buses, besides the estimated time required to reach their desired destination.

The mobile app will also allow passengers to find their lost property on the bus. The passengers can even set an alert for alighting at the desired bus stop. The app will alert the passengers sometime before the desired bus stop arrives.

The passengers can also rate the driver and conductors, in a manner similar to that followed by app-based cabs.

According to BEST officials, the only problem is the mobile app shows the estimated arrival time of the buses without considering the traffic jams and other possibilities. Hence, there is a chance that the buses won’t arrive within the estimated time.

BEST has geo-mapped nearly 6,000 bus stops and over 400 bus routes. BEST operates over 3,100 buses on these routes which ferry nearly 30 lakh passengers every day.