CHENNAI : Tamil New Year's Day will see three government buses fitted with Global Positioning System (GPS).

A State Express Transport Corporation bus on the Chennai-Tiruchi route and two city Metropolitan Transport Corporation buses, route 21G (Broadway-Tambaram) and route 70 (Avadi-Tambaram), will be inaugural users of the GPS pilot project on April 14.

"This is real time tracking, so passengers can stop worrying about uncertainty and delays. Say you have relatives travelling from Tiruchi to Tindivanam, you will be able to have a hot lunch ready ten minutes before they arrive," said S. Sadagopan, Director of the International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore.

IIIT-B is implementing the Rs. 3 crore project that is being funded by the Central Government's Department of Science and Technology.

Telematic units

By October, 50 MTC buses and 55 SETC buses will be fitted with onboard telematic units, each containing a GPS receiver to track location and a GSM mobile phone with GPRS capability to communicate this information.

Display units

A central control system monitoring the movement of the buses will be set up at the Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus in Koyambedu. Display units will be set up at the bus stands in Tiruchi, Villupuram and Tindivanam, and at 16 important bus stops along the city routes.

"Based on the working of the system and feedback and after ironing out teething troubles, more routes will be added. The system and the infrastructure installed will have the capacity to handle up to 10,000 buses. The MTC and SETC can keep adding buses to the system and scale up," S. Rajagopalan, a project co-ordinator at IIIT-B told The Hindu .

For indigenous version

MTC is working on a proposal to include its entire fleet of over 2,700 buses, and is hoping for funding from the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, according to Managing Director R Balasubramanian. He says they are trying to convince Siemens, which currently manufactures the onboard units in South Africa and prices them at around Rs 18,000 each, to produce an indigenous version in India.

"This will help in driver-to-control room communication," said Mr. Balasubramanian, pointing out that breakdowns, accidents or even violence could all be communicated more effectively using the system.

Support system

IITB says that apart from providing information on delays to passengers, the project will create a communication and decision support system for fleet managers and help in allocating bays and preventing congestion at the terminus.

It could even provide real time information on traffic congestion in Chennai city, as the average speed of buses travelling on various roads could be made available on FM, SMS and voice calls.

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