Friday, May 23, 2014

Stress-Free Transit Experience By Moovit Mobile Applications

Unexpected service disruption is inevitable among public transit (especially rail). For example, I was about to get to work when suddenly one of the transit operators broadcast a status update regarding their operation status on their Facebook page:

 

Then another status has been uploaded:


Rely heavily on the information, I went to Sri Rampai station (I catch train regularly from there) on exactly 8 am, expecting that the train service will be restored. Then I saw this information in front of the ticket counter;

 

I talked to one of the service officers there about this and she said that they cannot guarantee when the train service will resume to normal condition. I saw a lot of people queuing at the platform, mumbling and complaining about the level of service. I do understand their situation as the disruption occurs during peak hours where most of them will be late at work.

 


Wasting no time, I tried to seek another alternative to get to my workplace. I opened Moovit application installed on my phone. Since the nearest train station from my workplace is Tun Sambanthan (Monorail line), I directly set the "origin" and "destination" as Sri Rampai station and Tun Sambanthan station, respectively. It promptly showed which route should I take if I use train. 

Since KLJ line faced service disruption, I decided not to stop at any station that lies on KLJ line, so I planned to take public bus instead. Moovit promptly showed the alternative route and which bus I should take.


What makes Moovit special is it also shows the information on time of arrival (TOA) and estimated time arrival (ETA) which based on real-time system. Simply choose any route number (for example U25 for bus), select "schedule" and Moovit will quickly shows when the bus will arrive at your waiting station. All you have to do is switch on the GPS and Moovit will detect your location and calculate the TOA.


When you are aboard, you can broadcast various information about the bus like how crowded the bus is, whether the bus got access to wheelchair or not, the bus' cleanliness, and even the behavior of bus driver.


These information will be broadcasted among other Moovit users so that they will know accurately about the arriving bus/trains, thus they can make decisions whether to aboard the bus/train or seek another mode. It is easy and you will get reward points for it!

Moovit also constantly tells you where you are when you are aboard. Through google map (integrated with Moovit), you can see your current location and checkpoints that the bus/train stops, thus it will be easier for you to decide when you want to push "bell" button and alight the bus/train.

I have arrived at my workplace safely, and conveniently without have to wait for the disrupted service to be restored.

For web version, you can visit here. This application is available in Android and Apple version. All you need to have is internet connection and GPS mode switched to "on". Try it and you will never regret.

Happy Travelling!!

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