One ticketing app for every way of moving through Mumbai: local trains, the Metro, BEST buses, taxis and rickshaws, all behind a single phone app.
Mumbai runs metro, local trains, buses, autos and taxis, but the services are fragmented: there is one app for the metro, another for local trains, and separate platforms again for cabs and autos.
Some modes, buses and autos among them, have no well-known or government-backed app at all, which leaves riders with unreliable information and potentially higher fares.
Without an integrated way to navigate and pay, travellers spend excessive time working out routes and managing payments, worst of all at peak hours and whenever a trip needs more than one transfer.
The network itself is vast and branching, which is hard enough for an unfamiliar traveller. Auto-rickshaws are restricted to certain areas, so a trip usually has to fall back on trains, metros or buses anyway.
On top of that, buying a ticket is inconvenient enough that people skip it, especially across several modes. The research named the reason as a psychological barrier: buying separate tickets for each mode, and the length of the process each time.
If a single payment covered the whole journey, people would be far more likely to use public transport properly.
One city, one ticket.
It happens anywhere the metro and local train routes stretch, and it is worst at the big interchange stations, the points where a traveller has to switch modes.
The moment itself is specific: time lost working out routes, platforms and which app to open, instead of actually travelling. In a crowd, handling cash or a separate UPI payment for every leg is stressful and slow.
A transit integration platform: real-time tracking, multimodal route optimisation and fare transparency, across metros, local trains, buses and autos.
