BENGALURU: Google on Wednesday announced its partnership with Bangalore traffic police To optimize the timing of traffic lights.
“It is helping the local traffic authority to manage road congestion at major intersections, and will eventually spread to the entire city. Google will expand this to Kolkata and Hyderabad in partnership with local traffic authorities,” a press release from the company said.
It added: “Supporting the efforts of local traffic authorities to promote safe driving, Google Maps will now display speed limit data shared by traffic officers, starting with Bengaluru.”
Google has also announced the launch of its Street View experience in India in partnership with Genesys International and Tech Mahindra.
“Street View is available on Google Maps with fresh imagery licensed from local partners covering over 150,000 km across 10 cities in India including Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad.
It plans to expand to over 50 cities by the end of 2022. This India launch is the first time in the world that Street View is being fully brought to life by local partners,” it said.
Ravikanta Gowda, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic), Bengaluru, said, “We are the first Indian city to have started a pilot with Google. According to data provided by the company, the revised plan by Google resulted in an average 20% reduction in waiting time per driver passing through the pilot intersection during the day. We are excited by the positive impact this can have on reducing traffic congestion, road rage, fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.”
In addition, the release said: “Google has partnered with traffic authorities and aggregators to help people in eight cities across India, including Bengaluru, Delhi and Hyderabad, help them with… And avoid crowded areas with information about incidents.”
In India, Google recently piloted its Environmental Insights Explorer, a free tool designed to help cities and local governments measure emissions and identify reduction strategies with the help of public transport activity data. Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune and Aurangabad are using transport emissions data from EIE to develop climate action plans.
Google also announced its collaboration with the Central Pollution Control Board to help people in India make more informed travel decisions by equipping them with official air quality information. People can overlay this information in their Maps app by tapping the ‘Layers’ button in the top right and selecting the ‘Air Quality’ option.
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