For most Chennai residents, using buses to travel within the city is inevitable. This means that you need to find out where the bus stop is, what bus number goes to your destination, what route the bus takes and where you have to get off. But in Chennai, unless you are a frequent bus traveller, this information can prove elusive. The Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) currently does not offer an easily searchable map of bus routes in the city, or even a list of bus routes with all stops.

Transparent Chennai talked to the MTC to find out about how we can ease the access to such information. There are 650 bus-routes that are overseen by the MTC. The authorities at the MTC said that they did not have up-to-date maps for every bus route. Their website provides the names of all the main stages or depots that each route passes through. Unfortunately, this leaves out quite a bit of information. Each stage or depot is separated by roughly 2 km, and the website does not provide bus stop information. Users can search for routes that ply between particular stages that they identify from a drop down menu. While this is a start, residents do not always know the name of the closest depot near their origin or destination. The database also does not offer alternative options if there is no direct bus connecting these points.

This is why Transparent Chennai developed our new layer, a bus routes layer, using the bus stage data from the government, but repackaging it in a format that makes it far more useful. Commuters can just click on their origin and destination directly on the map to see all the routes that connect them. Check it out at: www.transparentchennai.com/buildamap/busroutestage/

But what about bus stops? Getting the names and locations of all the bus stops for these routes is a problem that we have been scratching our heads about for quite a few months. As far as we can tell, there are only two ways to get stop data for Chennai buses: To ask people, and to collect it manually ourselves.

We decided to try our hand at collecting and assembling comprehensive bus-route information ourselves. In the months of February, March and May of 2010, six interns from Stella Maris got into groups of two. At the beginning of every week, they compiled a list of buses that covered the city fairly well and seemed to be widely used. Then the interns set out, armed with a GPS unit, the bus numbers and some help from Google maps, and travelled the route from end to end. Every route took them roughly 3-4 hours and they marked bus stops on their GPS units, and, with the help of some very patient bus drivers and conductors, wrote down the stop name on a table. Everyday the bus-routes would be transferred from the GPS unit to our office computer, edited for errors and saved. The Transparent Chennai team covered over 70 routes in 7 weeks and also picked up random bus-route trivia. Did you know an ordinary 29C goes only up till Besant Nagar but a 29C Deluxe goes up to Thiruvanmiyur but via Adyar, not Besant Nagar?

Check out our routes complete with all bus stops here: www.transparentchennai.com/buildamap/busroutes

If you’re interested in helping us map all the bus stop information, please do get in touch with the Transparent Chennai team at tc@ifmr.ac.in, and for more updates on our work join our mailing list here.

Transparent Chennai

Transparent Chennai is working on several initiatives to create data and improve accountability in the city. We are looking for volunteers to help us in our efforts. There are a number of ways in which you can get involved with Transparent Chennai:

  • Beach Layer: Transparent Chennai, in collaboration with Reclaim our Beaches, has begun a new initiative to map Chennai’s beaches. TC is creating maps of the city’s beaches with toilet locations, informal urination spots, dustbins, dumpsters, trash accumulation sides, hawker areas, and other features, and looking at changes in usage through the day. These maps will help Reclaim our Beaches lobby the Corporation to install dust bins, public toilets and other much needed infrastructure along the beach. We invite individuals and groups to get involved with this initiative, as well as other groups to work with Transparent Chennai to create data for better advocacy work. You can view our new Elliot’s Beach map under the Build a Map section of the site.
  • Waterlogging Layer: Is your area affected by waterlogging or floods? This is a user-driven layer that allows you to mark areas affected by water logging on the map. We all know where waterlogging and floods happen in our own neighborhoods. By pooling this information on the map, we can create a record of places which are regularly and badly affected by floods. This map can be used to lobby the government to take action in areas of greatest need. Click here to mark areas of waterlogging on our site!
  • Bus Routes Layer: Currently, there is no easy-to-use, publicly available map of bus routes in the city. The TC team decided to create a database of bus routes in the city. We have an easily searchable map of all the routes in the city using the MTC’s stage to stage data. Just click on your origin and destination to find all routes that connect them. We have also mapped full routes (including all stops) for 50 routes by riding buses from terminus to terminus, carrying GPS units. Do you use public buses to commute within the city? If so, help us collect more bus routes for this layer.
  • Write on our blog!: TC maintains a blog, where team members actively write about ongoing data collection and projects, upcoming events, urban issues, city-related news, etc. The blog is an informal platform that allows the TC team, as well as the public to communicate with each other and comment/discuss on urban issues. We encourage our users to utilize this platform by actively reading, commenting and guest blogging. Please contact us if you would like to use our blog as a tool to communicate with other residents in the city.
  • Informal Meeting on Pedestrian Issues: Many residents feel that pedestrian space is shrinking in the city. TC is planning to host a series of meetings in partnership with local organizations to informally discuss walking spaces, pedestrian accidents and other pedestrian issues in different areas of the city. In order to help us plan and prepare for these meetings, we request you to send us details about pedestrian issues in your area. Is your locality pedestrian friendly? What are some junctions in your locality that are particularly accident-prone and dangerous to pedestrians? Is it easy for elderly members of your community to walk in your area? How about for children? Please send us an email with these details, so we can all learn about issues facing pedestrians in various parts of the city.

I first heard about this project “Transparent Chennai” from an intern working on the project at CDF sometime in the month of July. Upon learning what the project was endeavouring for the Chennai citizens, the component that most interested me was the mapping of city’s bus routes. Having been fleeced by the auto drivers of Chennai in the first two months of my stay in the city, I was just starting to explore buses as an option to run my errands around the city.

So soon after the TC launch on 4th October, I logged in to check out the feature on bus routes. In the past week thanks to TC I have discovered two new bus routes from Adyar to Santhome (6D and 21T) in addition to a new bus stop near home (this one sadly has no bus shed or a board to announce its existence to the commuters!). But TC mappers discovered this one too!!!

By playing around with this tool, one can discover the various permutation and combination of buses available between two destinations. For example, now I know that by breaking my journey at Satya studio while commuting from Adyar to Santhome, I can greatly increase my options. There are 5 bus routes from Adyar to Satya studio and 4 more between Satya studio and Santhome. This is in addition to the 2 new direct bus route discoveries made through TC. Now you can see the humongous jump in my bus route options.

Our TC is truly an apt acronym for “Take Care” I would say….

Posted by Sivapradha, Researcher, Centre for Development Finance, IFMR