Pune Municipal Transport

A friend's mail ignited my passions about public transport systems and productivity of people. :-)

So follwing is letter, I wrote to PMT on July 2004. If I remember correctly, PMT people said me that they will be putting data (schedule etc.) on a new website. I just googled for it, could not find. Do you know it, oh, you smart reader of my blog? then do not hesitate to mail me : vijay.patil -ta- gmail.com

More reference links :
www.transitchicago.com/
www.pacebus.com/


To
General Manager
Pune Municipal Transport,
Pune, India
Subject: Request for data about bus routes, bus stops etc. for academic or
experimental software project(s)

Dear Sir,
I am an independent software programmer interested in academic or experimental software projects related to public transport.

One such software project is designed to help people to access information about bus routes between different bus stops using Internet. This project is referred as Pune Navigator in this document.

Similar project called Mumbai Navigator has been successfully done by Prof. Abhiram G. Ranade and his students at Computer Science and Engineering Department of Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. BEST who operates bus service in Mumbai provided the required data. Mumbai Navigator is very popular among the users. Pune Navigator will involve small changes in the existing software. Prof. Ranade has kindly agreed to make those changes once the data about bus routes, bus stops is made available. I am making a formal request to you for the data on his behalf.

Following will be the main benefits of Pune Navigator.

+ Benefits For People (Users of PMT Bus service)

1. User will see different routes of PMT bus services between any two bus stops.
2. User will see estimated fare in Rs. between two bus stops and frequency of buses.
3. People will come to know about changes in the bus routes (new bus routes,
cancelled bus routes) immediately.
4. Use of computers, Internet is rapidly increasing among people due to factors like
low costs, useful software & services, educational value etc. Pune Navigator will
be easily accessible using any computer (at home, office, school, hospitals etc.)
having Internet connection. This will help people to plan properly.

+ Typical user profiles
Students, senior citizens, IT professionals, business visitors, tourists etc.

+ Benefits For PMT
1. Pune Navigator will indirectly to add more users to PMT bus service. This will positively affect PMT revenues.

2. Use of software for better management. The data about bus routes, frequency and bus stops will be entered and stored in a database. This will help to add, access, and modify data easily. PMT Managers will be able obtain specific information quickly which will help them to make quick decisions.

3. Good starting point for more elaborate software projects (which PMT might undertake in future) for increasing revenues, increasing quality of service, and better management.

To start the work on the project, I kindly request you to make available following data about PMT bus service.

1. List of all bus routes
2. Round trip time for each route
3. Frequency of each route
4. List of all main bus stops (name of the bus stop and stop code number)
5. Distance in KMs between different bus stops
6. Other related data of potential usefulness

You can contact me or Professor Ranade for more information.

Note: Mumbai Navigator can be accessed using Internet at following URL:
http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/navigator/index.html

Time Travel

Today we will calculate time difference between Pune and Kolkata using longitude information. We will also try to calculate the approximate distance based on longitude and lattitude.

	Lattitude	Longitude
Kolkata	22 30' N	88 20' E
Pune	18 34' N	73 58' E

Difference in the Longitude = 88 20 E - 73 58 E = 14 22' ~= 14.37 degrees.

1 degree of Longitude = 4 Minutes (of your wristwatch)
14.37 d = 14.37 * 4 = 57.48 Minutes

Conclusion I am 1 Hr ahead in time :-) In Kolkata it gets dark at 5.30 PM.

Nows lets try distance d between Pune and Kolkata.

1 degree of Longitude = 111 Kms on equator.

The line joining Pune to Kolkata is no equator, so we have consider lattitude. We will take the average of lattitudes at two places i.e. 20.

d = 111 * cos(20) * 14.37 (Kms)
= 104.3 * 14.37 (Kms)
= 1498.87 (Kms)

The train ticket shows distance as 2020 Kms which makes sense because 'd' is straight line distance.

Durga Puja

Durga Puja

Here in Kolkata Durga Puja festival was celebrated during 20-22 October.

Durga idols, decorations, pandals (marquee), social gatherings, music, dance, people wearing newly bought saries and kurtas, crowded jewelry shops, lights, sweets, colors, artists entertaining people with their art, it was awesome.

Till I own a digital camera I have to point you to outside source for photos.

Artists from Orissa

My search for social gatherings lead me to Eastern Zonal Cultural Center. Drama (with music) displaying fight between goddess Durga and daemon was performed. Dance of goddess Durga's Lion was fun to watch, imitation the movements of a lion. In the climax goddess Durga kills the daemon (Idols in the pandals depict this moment).
In next show Boys dressed like girls perform a danceform involving acrobatics.

Manipuri Dancers

"Since the creation of the universe from the dark, man (human being) is the only one gifted with 'rational thought process', using which he has become superior species."

"But as it is gifted, it suffers from a negative instincts like lust, obsession, greed, hate, arrogrance, jealousy"

Dancers perform to describe stories involving some of negative aspects and consequences.
I really like the part where dancers describe people of kalinga and its defeat to Emperor Ashoka.

After the show, I met one of the dancers and took her autograph. I also bought a wooden flute from local artists, he taught me to play sa-re-ga-ma-pa-dha-ni-sa.

My Employer

SkyTech Solutions



Saltlake City Map

TODO: Add a svg map of salk lake here.