KOCHI: As Kochi Metro Rail Ltd launches its new website, it brings to the fore an interesting collaboration. One in which a shining instance of industry-academia handholding saw fifth-semester BTech information and technology students of Cusat develop and design the all-inclusive, user-friendly digital face of KMRL – which will be launched on Monday. But what made KMRL hand over the project to the Cusat team?
According to Daleesha M Viswanathan, associate professor and faculty coordinator, division of information technology, School of Engineering, Cusat, “About two years back, a person from the IT department of KMRL approached me for a project focused on gender identification. We successfully built and handed over a prototype, with data from the Cusat metro station. The data was theirs. We built the infrastructure.”
“That was the start of a tie-up which later turned into another opportunity for the university and us,” Daleesha said. According to her, KMRL then approached the department with a project that envisioned a new website. “The present website is 10 years old and not user-friendly. Moreover, it was created when KMRL only ran metro trains. But things have changed. Besides metro rail, it now manages water metro, feeder buses, e-autos and bicycles as part of a sharing programme. And, its website had to reflect the changes,” she added.
Daleesha pointed out that unlike the old website, the new one encompasses all five dimensions of KMRL, including ticket booking. It is a user-friendly pathway to plan a journey. “The student team comprised Jayasurya Jayakumar, Alen Philip, Hafiz Hussain and Muhammed Dilshan C. I was convinced of their ability. The team members, who are all now in their third year, took two to three weeks to develop the website,” she said.
The internship programmes and projects that the students undertook in their fourth semester helped them in the endeavour, Daleesha said. “Their creativity and strong knowledge of back-end technology also stood them in good stead.” The team analysed the current website. “The new one is unique. Users get the feel of a moving metro train. Now, this was possible on the website. For the mobile application, we kept it simple since many don’t have high-end phones,” she added.
Besides ticket booking, the new website provides information on stations, facilities, nearby locations and even the live running status of trains. Another highlight is the ‘Beyond Travel’ section with information on business and career opportunities, and other services. According to Daleesha, the site will soon have a feature that will allow users to track the carbon footprint of KMRL services. “This is a requirement when it comes to taking Kochi Metro to the global platform,” she added.
Along For The Ride
5 modes of travel – metro train, feeder bus, water metro, e-auto and shared bicycle – under one platform
Info on stations, facilities, nearby locations and live train tracking
Easy access to ticket booking
User-friendly access with mobile & web applications
Info on business and career opportunities, and other services
Carbon-footprint tracking feature to be added soon