Mumbai to Get Unified Public Transport Services Across Rail, Metro, Bus, Taxi Networks

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority has formalised a partnership with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to create a new unified software and infrastructure offering that it says will turn the city’s multiple modes of public transport into a single mobility ecosystem. 

With the goal of creating an end-to-end “Mobility as a Service (MaaS) platform across various transportation providers, the new Mumbai Transport Stack (MTS) will be built on standard open data exchange protocols. It will combine ticketing, payments, tracking, trip planning, parking, and much more across Mumbai’s multiple rail, metro and bus lines as well as taxi services and additional modes of transport. 

The MTS promises to make rides more convenient and affordable for city residents, with security and privacy considerations accounted for. Commuters will be able to check the status of any form of public transport, and plan their last-mile connectivity including public parking facilities and feeder routes to and from major transport hubs. A single payment will take care of all stages of the trip. Users will also get real-time tracking with delay alerts and alternative route suggestions. 

It will also give service operators and regulatory bodies a unified, multi-modal, scalable and data-driven network with which to make decisions for future expansion. Urban planners as well as private players will be able to see real-time traffic and service usage data in order to develop new services or take advantage of this mobility intelligence.

The proposal signed by the MMRDA and JICA’s DXLab digital transformation initiative covers planning and design for the infrastructure setup, app design and documentation; building and testing; deployment and administrative training; and ongoing maintenance. The agency has undertaken similar efforts in New Delhi and Bengaluru.