The Centre for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transport and Urban Development (CISTUP) has developed a multi-modal public transport trip planner for the city. Any commuter, who wishes to use a combination of public transport systems like BMTC and Metro, can access the website and develop the itinerary by giving his origin and destination using an interactive interface. ‘Maargamitra’ is an attempt to promote the use of sustainable modes of public transport in the city. The trip planner gives the best path based on a unique concept of ‘generalised cost’, in which the best path is obtained based on a weighted combination of walking time, travel time, waiting time, transfer time and fare,” says Dr Ashish Verma from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science.
“At present, the trip planner includes Big 10, Vayu Vajra, Vajra, and Metro Reach-1 services. But as part of updating the system in future, the other bus routes as well as any new public transport modes that may come in future will be included. The structural design of the trip planner allows these additions easily,” he says. “Some users may prefer direct routes as compared to routes involving transfers, even when the direct route involves higher travel time. All these considerations relevant for Indian conditions can be imitated in trip planning by considering a generalised cost (GC) approach during shortest path analysis for finding the optimum route through a multi-modal public transport network,” he says.