Over the past few months with the marvelous assistance of the trusted Community, we have been able to bring Moovit to the megacity of Mumbai, India. With more than 21 million inhabitants, it is one of the most populated cities in the world. Two volunteers in particular stand out for their contributions, Chirag and Shashank, who for the past few months have been busy mapping the transit systems in Mumbai, making it the first ever Community-contributed launch for a city in India.
Chirag responded to a call from the Community Team to assist with the city. He far surpassed any request for help and even proceeded to map the 48 trip variations of the inner-city railway routes. Chirag grasps the Community mission, “I wish and hope to have this app in the hands of those millions of people who travel to work and back, spending 2-3 hours of their day just in transit.” He told us with enthusiasm. Thankfully Chirag is not alone in his views, shortly after him a new member, Shashank, joined the Mumbaikar Community and used his local knowledge to edit and perfect the transit data of the city.
In October of last year Moovit launched its first Indian city on the app, Bangalore, and it was not long before the Community began to contribute to perfect the information. Arjun, a first year Technology student at the P.E.S University, was quick to begin bestowing his local wisdom on the line database and passing on his insightful local information to others. Arjun told us a bit about his experience in the Community, “I heard about Moovit from a friend and since I knew a lot about BMTC (the main transit agency in Bangalore)… and I love how Moovit is using the city’s data in an innovative way, I saw this as the right platform to help others.” Arjun continues to add and edit information about the city’s public transit and encourages others to join his crusade, he selflessly stated, “Anyone in the Community can approach me for help.”
In the megacities of India, millions of public transit users face long waiting periods and uncertainty in travel time and difficult conditions. We hope that with the help of such altruistic people like Chirag, Shashank and Arjun, we will be able to bring the app’s service to many other cities across India and benefit everyone.
Read more about the launch and our wonderful Community in Mumbai here.