Mapunity – Social technology at work

Mapunity uses and develops technology to tackle social problems and development challenges in India.  They provide map based services and design geographical information systems along with mobile technologies mostly for government departments and civil society organisations. They are also extend their services to R&D initiatives of commercial ventures.

Of all the various project Mapunity is involved with , the one that caught my fancy is their Urban Traffic and Transport Information Systems, with particular reference to the city of Bangalore. (check http://btis.in/) Bangalore is India’s third most populous city and fifth-most populous urban agglomeration. As a resident of this city, I fully understand the need for a well designed and defined transport information system.

Thanks to Sean @ Babajobs.com, I was lucky to to engage in conversation with Ashwin Mahesh – CEO and Founding Member of Mapunity. Truth be told, Ashwin is a very busy man. Along with acting like an evangelist, who helps government departments gain the benefit of emerging new capabilities in technology; he co- edits a public affairs magazine – India Together, and is an urban affairs researcher at IIM Bangalore and with the Government of Karnataka. He is also part of the ABIDe – Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa’s Agenda for Bangalore Infrastructure and Development task force . I managed to weasel a precious 15 minutes of his time.

Ashwin patiently explained to me how Mapunity went about to provide beautiful and intelligent solutions to Bangalores urban chaos. (Needless to say, he was able to intervene the above mentioned space, not without having friends in higher places. Governments are skeptical of outsiders and so it helps being an advisor to the BMTC – Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation).

Bangalore follows a circular  transport system.The city’s road follow two concentric circles with outer radial lines. In order to create and redefine a system, one had to conceptually redesign the map in peoples minds. The massive shift was made from a destination based system to a direction based one. This is how Big 10 was born. It is a bus service that connects 10 major roads to the outer ring road of the city.The main goal was to achieve a situation where people would be able to identify from the bus board, where the bus goes. People need not keep wondering where to get a bus from, to reach a particular location. If one knows where the bus is going and where to get it from, it is bound to bring in more commuters.The main objective was to make public transport a better system. In order to achieve this, Ashwin suggested that one made these buses recognizable and make them stand apart. Essentially brand the whole bus. Lime green in colour and bearing the Big 10 logo in a large bold fashion, these buses can be spotted from a distance. Designed by Dig Design Studio (www.digdesignstudio.com), the logo reads as Big 10 in both English and Kanadda. Operated at high frequency, the Big 10 buses address three key elements of : predictability,  understandability and reliability .

The Big 10 took seven months of planning and execution, and is India’s first direction based system. This system also allows for more accurate tracking of the mobility patterns of people. Mapunity, has prepared and is maintaining a database for the BMTC. Ashwin and his team hold consultations, surveys and regular meetings with BMTC officials to update the database which has details about how many people travel per day, on which route and how much is the public transport system helping the public.  The data is self reveling. These buses are a favoured choice amongst frequent commuters and their popularity is only growing. 1/10th of the BMTC buses are run on this module.Currently there are 187 buses on the road and it estimated to go upto 400 buses by the end of the year.

For more information, please visit – http://www.mapunity.in/