Several areas in the world have been gifted the trans-communication treat that is real-time information provided by Google Maps. The next country in line to get the travel info service may be India by way of Indian Railways. Fixing GPS devices to trains in order to integrate them with Google Maps would provide accuracy within two minutes without stations having to manually coordinate between each other regarding arrival times of trains. From The Economic Times of India:
The GPS devices, which will cost around Rs 70,000-1,00,000 per train, would be fitted in about 100 trains, which may help avert collisions and prevent loss of lives. In affect, trains in future may know each other’s location, and start breaking, in case of danger ahead.
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Currently, scheduling is done manually. Station masters call the divisional headquarters and inform them once a train has left a particular station. “In future, the controller will only plan the running and scheduling of trains instead of co-ordinating with various other stations to confirm the status of the trains,” said V.A. Chopra, of the Centre for Railway Information Systems in India.
So far, several cities in the United States have the real-time public transport data, as well as cities around the world like Madrin, London, Turin, Zurich, and Sydney, to name a few. When the real-time travel info is available through Google maps, commuters will be able to find out more at Indianrailways.gov.in.