Yahoo’s driving directions in India

First, it was RouteGuru. Now, Yahoo India has launched driving directions, with the added bonus of “auto fares” for that route! Sounds cool. But the reality…

I searched for the route from Old Madras Road to Cunningham Road. The good news is that Landmark-based driving directions (which RouteGuru kick started few months ago) seems to work as well as they do on RouteGuru.

But, here are couple of issues to be resolved:

• The “auto fare” is far from reality. For the above route that I looked up, the “auto fare” displayed is Rs. 45!!! That was probably the fare several years ago!!
• The results also show the time it’s supposed to take for that route. And, going by the results here, it’s supposed to take me 25 minutes to get there. Yeah, right! Probably on a Sunday, when the whole city’s under curfew!

Anyways, sarcasm aside, I thought the “auto fares” feature is a really good idea. But, it’s got to be implemented with a reality-check. You can’t release this feature without having tested it thoroughly with real-life data.

Interestingly, I can see this feature working very differently in a city like Chennai. For those unfamiliar with Chennai’s infamous auto drivers, they don’t use the meter at all…it’s just a “flat rate”, depending on their mood or state of mind at that moment! So, as & when the Yahoo “auto fares” feature is updated with more realistic auto fares, this could probably be used by those in Chennai to figure out what’s the bargaining benchmark, especially for those who’re new to the city!

With regards to the “Time” mentioned for each route, this is quite redundant, unless integrated with a real-time traffic monitoring system like MapUnity’s BTIS application. Maybe it’s on the cards…who knows, but until then it’s quite a pointless, even misleading feature.

Real estate experiences…

Been looking up office spaces (more like an ‘home office’) and the roller coaster hasn’t concluded yet. Here are few initial reflections, in no particular sequence or order…

• Real estate agents, aka “brokers”, are highly territorial. One of the first questions you ask a broker is, which area (locality) do they “specialize” in!
• Brokers tap into a highly reliable & up-to-date network. This network could include security guards, dhobi or ironwallahs, dhoodhwallahs, maids/cooks, car cleaners, etc. After all, they’re one of the first set of people to know when a tenant is going to vacate. And now with increasing mobile phone penetration, brokers are just an SMS away!
• An unmet need/opportunity — The ability to view available properties on one’s mobile phone, based on one’s location. Imagine, as you’re driving by your favourite neighbourhood, you bring up a street/locality map on the mobile that displays all the ‘available’ properties for rent in the vicinity. I desperately need this one NOW.
• Don’t know if they would be too kicked about this, but Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) seems to be the preferred and most frequently used rendezvous for broker-client meet-ups!! Considering CCD seems to be present in almost every locality in the city now, it’s not a bad idea!
• The ‘landlords’ (I find this such a pre-historic term) device their own ways of conducting a quick dipstick to evaluate whether you’re a worthy tenant or not. Questions are amusing, bizarre, interesting, predictable or at times, just crazy…
  • “I hope you’re vegetarian?”
  • “Only 2 of you?…but this is 3 bedroom”
  • “Software-aaa?? (when you fail to explain what profession you are in)!
• Nameplate on the door of one of the homes we checked out…”Mr. XYZ, M.S, (USA)”. Landlord did also reiterate the fact that their 2nd son is “going to America” very soon “to study masters”.
• One place was named “Soccer Villa”. And predictably, the landlord came fully attired in (un)official Arsenal-wear!
• The ‘lifecycle’ of a search usually lasts from 1 to 3 weeks. And one is inevitably in daily communication with the brokers during this process. Brokers are probably in touch with so many different clients, temporarily (1 to 3 weeks), yet very frequently.
  So, how do they go about managing the Contact list on their mobiles? At what point do they save the client’s phone number to the Contact list? When do the brokers delete the client from the Contacts? And considering one usually sticks to the same broker one has worked with before, do brokers feel the need to continue to store the number…just so they can recognize the number when the client calls after several months or years?

More innovation with traffic

Continuing from my previous story about RouteGuru, wanted to also share couple of other increasingly popular traffic related innovations happening in India (incidentally, both originating from Bangalore)…

Mapunity has put together this application for the Bangalore Traffic Police. It shows live traffic information for the entire city, using the cell phone networks across the city. Depending on the presence of cellphones (and therefore, people), the map shows you how crowded/dense that area is currently.

Of course, it’s not meant to be exact or precise in terms of the number of people/vehicles on the street…but it does the job…you get a sense of how smooth the traffic flow is or isn’t currently.

And the second one, which has been around for some time now and far more publicised and popular, Commute Easy, for car & bike-pooling. The techies in Bangalore seem to be loving it!

With the phenomenal boom in cell phones in the country, and with almost every one in the urban cities carrying (at least) one cell phone, no wonder both these concepts are relying and using mobile phones to make things easy for users. Way to go!

Driving directions, the Indian way

Yet another startup geared towards Indian users, RouteGuru. And based on a quick look (and use) of the site, I loved it!

Unlike in the most other parts of the world, the best way to get driving directions in India has always been…to just stop and ask somebody!! Of course, at times it does get frustrating when all you get is “ekdam seedha jaao“…meaning, “Just go straight!!”

So, it’s really interesting to see RouteGuru has used this technique, of using landmarks to point people in the right direction. Check this out…I did a sample search for Delhi (other cities aren’t active yet), from the domestic airport (Palam airport) to Alaknanda. And here’s what it came up with (a snapshot of the detailed directions)…

I love the way it says “Start with overhead tank on your right side” and even better, “Pass by taxi stand on right”. I can almost visualize somebody on the street directing me there. Good stuff!

They’ve also added in a nice feature of sending an SMS to your mobile with these directions.

Will get back with more updates (if any) after I’ve spent more time with this. Hopefully the Bangalore version will be active soon.