Moving the Next Billion: In Bangalore, Mapunity Can Put Everyone on the Map - Literally

Abigail Keene-Babcock — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:11:43 -0500

Yesterday, I attended a presentation by Madhav Pai, who was visiting WRI to tell us about a system developed by an organization he has worked with called Mapunity, that is linking together MIS, GIS, and SMS technologies to enhance transportation access and planning in Bangalore.

If this sounds only mildly related to poverty, or particularly technical, it’s only because describing it in other terms seemed insane, trite, or both (other titles for this posting included: "Democracy in Density," "Beam Me Something Useful" and "Cell Phones in Motion").

Basically, the original idea for Mapunity was to come up with an open-source system for Bangalore that would perform functions similar to those provided by Google Maps. Mapunity now offers the SMS-driven Bangalore Traffic Information System, which provides extensive information about bus routes, locations, and traffic congestion in real time, deliverable to cell phones, for free (or at minimal cost, if you’re not with Airtel).

The system works by collecting information on cell phone signal density, and using that as an indicator of congestion at different intersections.

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Moving the Next Billion: In Bangalore, Mapunity Can Put Everyone on the Map - Literally