Pune’s public transport bus authority deploys Google Cloud for real-time tracking

Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Ltd (PMPML), the public transport bus service provider of the city has partnered with Google Cloud to build an intelligent transit management system and feed system to track buses live on Google Maps.  

PMPML offers bus services for the twin cities of Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad and Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) region. It operates 2,142 buses across 371 routes around the Pune Metropolitan Region and this technology will enable commuters to easily find the bus in real time and make their journey easier.   

PMPML currently has hardware installed on their buses which are capable of sending real-time data. With this partnership PMPML is looking to move to a globally accepted specification GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification GTFS) for publishing the transit information and also use the data to provide insights to their management team on different performance aspects of their fleet  

The collaboration will help them ingest real-time data from all applicable buses from the OBU (on board unit) system installed on the PMPML buses. They will further validate the data for GTFS field-values. Then the data will get fed to the Google Maps Partner Dashboard for a complete GTFS validation. Once published on Google Maps, Live Transit Updates service will allow commuters to track buses in real time on Google Maps, the PMPML said in a statement. 

The system will be further extended to include the features of Transport Analytics including asset tracking, predictive maintenance and incident response in the next phase to reduce the operational cost and increase the revenue.   

Google Cloud will work through its premier partner Niveus Solutions Pvt. Ltd and others for this engagement, the company said in a statement. 

“The partnership will not only improve commuter experiences but also improve the internal efficiencies of PMPML over time in a scalable and replicable fashion leveraging transformational technologies like cloud and data analytics,” Om Prakash Bakoria, IAS, Chairman & Managing Director, PMPML said.  

Bikram Singh Bedi, Managing Director at Google Cloud India, believes the concept can be “replicated across different cities and states in India and make life easier for commuters”.  

On October 12, Google Cloud announced its empanelment by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). This enables public sector including government agencies at the centre and state levels, and public sector units (PSUs) in sectors such as power banking financial services and insurance (BFSI), transportation, oil and gas, public finance, and other to deploy Google Cloud. 

The competitors of Google such as IBM, Amazon, Microsoft, and Oracle, have already received approval from MeitY to procure and initiate digital transformation projects.