App to make autos safer for women

GPS-enabled device can locate victim

The Delhi Multimodal Transport System will launch a women’s safety cell phone application ‘Telltail’ this week, which can be synchronised with GPS-fitted autorickshaws – a feature not available in other such 'safety apps'.

The app will enable contacts of the user to monitor her movement in an autorickshaw.
What really sets it apart from the dozens of private safety apps is the ‘Track By Vehicle’ option, where the user will have to switch on her GPS. On entering the vehicle number, DIMTS will know about the user’s movement.

But since only one-fourth of Delhi’s autos are reportedly fitted with Global Positioning System, this app will come with a constraint.

This free application will be launched on Google Play for Android smartphones and it will be available soon on phones that use other operating systems.

The mobile application can help a woman in distress reach her friends and family by a click of a button. It will help raise a security alert even for police to reach the victim.
The application is said to have three button options – Track Me, Track By Vehicle and Panic Button – clicking which the user will be able to reach important contacts within seconds. It will support tracking of some 20,000 new autos that are fitted with GPS device.

The AAP government plans to install GPS device in all autorickshaws of Delhi. In one of the sops offered to auto drivers, Kejriwal assured cheaper GPS devices. The transport department charges Rs 18,000 per auto for setting up GPS through DIMTS.
DIMTS is a joint venture company between the city government and an NGO called IDFC Foundation, which already tracks autos and state-run buses in Delhi using GPS devices.

On whether DIMTS is eyeing to collaborate with the Delhi Transport Corporation to provide similar services in buses, a spokesperson of the organisation said, “It depends on the government.”