BENGALURU: Ever waited for a bus without knowing when it’s going to arrive? Did you notice a bunch of buses going to the same destination and reaching a particular bus stand all at the same time instead of at intervals? These are some of the common problems that the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) regularly faces. Aware of this, the corporation is working with a city institute to solve these problems.
Professor Chandrashekhar Ramanathan from the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-B), who is working on the project, explains how making an HDS Analytics Framework that collects, accounts, arranges heterogeneous data from various sources, will help resolve many issues. “A person complains on social media about the lack of buses on particular routes. The BMTC compiles its own data on the number of buses that ply on various routes.
All these are different kinds of data sets from two different sources. What we aim to do is create a system that will compile these into a platform that can homogenise the data and be able to make sense of it and use it,” he adds.Sorting and organising data received and compiled by the corporation is only one part of the collaboration between the two organisations. Dr Yogalakshmi, a post doctoral student at the institute, who is also working on the project, explains the other aspect of the association. “BMTC was setting up intelligent systems and IT control rooms some time back. It was around this time that we came forward with a proposal to them to build this analytics framework,” says Yogalaksmhi.
The team has been carrying out small surveys based on the data that has already been compiled. “With this data, for example, we have tried to figure out some trends - how many buses pass through certain stretches of around five kilometers between, say, 9am to 9.15am, and other timings. Although we knew areas such as Silk Board are congested, we now have data to prove this,” says Yogalakshmi.