Google Transit app helps people to know about the public transport facilities available for traveling between two places. This service will be very helpful for the people, who are not familiar with the public transport services like the buses and railways.
Google Transit in India
Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) was the first Indian Bus service to launch on Google maps, in October 2010. It was then followed by Pune, Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad and recently – Hyderabad and Chennai. And the ultimate goal of Google is to expand the services to cover all forms of public transport in all the cities in India.
How to use Google Transit?
Accessing this service is also quiet easy if you know how to use Google maps. Just visit Google maps and fill the details of your from and to locations in the columns A and B, then click the ‘Get Directions’ button. Now you will be redirected to Google maps where your can see two symbols of a car and a bus, adjacent to each other just above the left sidebar. Click the bus icon which denotes public transport system, then you will be provided with information like the suggested bus routes and the time of journey.
You will get all the detailed information like where to take the bus, which bus number to take, number of minutes taken to reach destination, and even when, where and how much time to walk before and after taking the bus.
Below column B, you have a ‘Show options’ link, to you can use other advanced options like at what time you are planning to travel, which mode of transport you would like to use, and what kind of route you would prefer to travel in.
Click here to get step-by-step instructions to use Google Transit.
Google Transit on Mobile phones too
You might be wrong if you think that Google Transit is useful only to people having PC’s and laptops. In a view, to make the service more useful, Google made it available as a mobile application too. So, we can make the best use of it at any time, and any where from our mobile phones. Interestingly, we can also find where exactly the bus stop is located.
Accurate information
As told by the officials from Google Maps and Local Product, all the information provided by the Google Transit, regarding available services and the frequency, is quiet certain since it is collected from multiple credible sources. However, the application does not account the real time travel or traffic jams, since it may take much longer time, in case of traffic jams and bus breakdowns.
The transit is also not providing direct instantaneous user feedback or updates on the traffic scenes, that may help other users to avoid traveling in a particular route. On the other hand, users can use the map maker tool to indicate any change in the landmarks indicated on the map.
Modified version of the post from Hyderabad-India-online.com.