Last week when Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced the National Logistics Policy, an indigenous company MapmyIndia, which specialised in deep tech, unveiled an app for the logistics ecosystem. It is also currently working on a road safety solution, which is similar to what Intel India has been doing.
The company unveiled the Mappls swadeshi consumer app, logistics technology and APIs that are integrated with the government’s unified logistics interface platform (ULIP). The app, which can be used to solve multiple issues, is expected to play an important role in boosting India’s economy.
Rohan Verma, CEO & Executive Director, MapmyIndia Mappls, stated that the newly launched solution will enable “an Aatmanirbhar, Sarvottam Bharat, by helping goods and people move faster, cheaper and safer across India, reducing the cost of logistics for both long-haul and last-mile, and improving speed, cost and quality of planning and completion of logistics infrastructure and network connectivity planning pan India”.
Logistic solution
MapmyIndia’s solution for the logistics ecosystem includes highly detailed 2D, 3D, HD, 360 degrees, 4D and analytics map data across the country, as well as multi-modal route optimisation and navigation tools and APIs for long-haul and last-mile.
It also contains Route & Journey Scoring and Risk Assessment tools based on safety hazards, costs, and vehicle type suitability to generate optimal route plans and driver alerts, as well as mGIS geospatial software for planning and analysing urban and rural logistics infrastructure and connectivity in 2D and 3D.
Furthermore, drone-based mapping and maintenance inspection of infrastructure, progress monitoring of construction, digital transformation of logistics operations, including GPS and NavIC IoT for goods movement tracking, fleet and field workforce and asset management, all of these are part of MapmyIndia Mappls Logistics Solutions for Enterprises.
India Road Safety Solution
When it comes to road safety, Intel India is already working on identifying risk-prone zones all over the country, conducted several pilot projects with state governments and road transportation organisations in Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, and Kerala, with an aim to road accident-related deaths by 50% by 2025.
Intel has collaborated with the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H) to build the world’s first open dataset of driving conditions in India. With the open dataset, the company expects start-ups, academia, government and industry will be able to collaborate on enabling AI-based solutions for road safety, enhanced infrastructure and safer driving behaviours.
Kishore Ramisetty, Vice-President at Intel Foundry Services and General Manager, Vertical Solutions and Services Group, Intel, earlier told News18: “When it comes to road safety in India, we are witnessing three separate aspects – safer vehicles, safer roads, and safer drivers. For each of these, we have deployed technologies such as AI, IoT, ML, Computer Vision, etc. In the safer roads category, we are implementing statistical analysis technologies/ML models that are utilized for identifying what we call grey spots and black spots.”
A black spot is a segment of a road where an accident caused a casualty and Intel calls it “a lagging indicator”. Here it should be noted that as per Ramisetty, Intel is using AI and IoT technology to identify these spots and construct safer routes.
Though the tech giant has made huge progress in terms of developing its own solution-based system to help the country, MapmyIndia is also working on the same issue with the help of the Mappls App.
With this app, the indigenous company is now aiming to reduce travel time, costs, hassle, and road accidents, critical in the Indian context, making it the best maps and navigation app for all Indians.
However, the company has claimed that this indigenous app is “far better than those foreign maps that come pre-loaded with most phones and search engines”.
According to MapmyIndia, other foreign apps “incorrectly depict India’s international boundaries, give inaccurate routes and search results, show junk places at incorrect locations on their maps, and prey on users’ private and personal data to target them with ads”.
The company also stated that the Mappls app correctly displays India’s borders and has a clean business model that respects the privacy of the users, who need to download the app from the app store.
Mappls promotes road safety and accident reduction, by displaying route summaries and providing real-time alerts to drivers about upcoming speed limits, speed cameras, speed breakers, sharp curves, accident-prone zones, traffic signals, and photo-realistic 3D views of junctions.
It is distinctively integrated with data collected by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, as well as traffic and road closure advisories from traffic authorities. Mappls is also uniquely incorporated with ISRO satellite imagery and earth observation data about weather, snow cover, and other factors.
Additionally, the company said: “Mappls correctly differentiates routes basis vehicle type (4-wheeler, 2-wheeler, truck etc.), avoiding small lanes for 4-wheelers and trucks for example, and accurate, live traffic congestion info, ensuring drivers arrive on time, without getting lost.”
“Mappls give detailed total trip cost estimates including toll gate-wise fees, as well as fuel/battery costs, allowing drivers to plan better; find potentially cheaper routes,” it noted.
Furthermore, the app also allows users to search for all relevant facilities such as rest stops, restaurants, ATMs, garages, hotels, ambulances, blood banks and more to ensure the travel is comfortable and hassle-free in case of breakdown or emergency.
Additionally, Mappls provides immersive 3D Metaverse and 360-degree RealView maps in hundreds of cities and lakhs of kilometres across India, allowing drivers to know exactly how a place and route will appear in real life.
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