Chennai: Chennai metro rail mobile application, launched last month, has become a hit among the public with nearly 10,000 downloads in 30 days.
Initially only catering to android users, the app is now available on iOS platform too.
Commuters say the app provides information on all prime details. “The application is very useful in finding the location of each station and the nearest landmarks, availability of Link Bridge and parking in stations and the feeder services available from stations,” said M. Bhaskar, a passenger. Most users of the app are non-Tamil speakers, mostly students.
Prabjyot Kaur, 23, said most of the staff do not know English and initially, it was difficult to find platform, get the fares or find which buses go to the station. Now, they need not ask anybody.
CMRL app enables a commuter to know the distance covered, cost of the journey, names of the station and the train timings. Outside the station, a user can get information about the nearest metro station, the direction and travel time. Additional attractions of it include mentions about tourist spots and weather forecast.
However, one of the major drawbacks of the application is improper timing of metro. “The trains come at least after 10 minutes after the application alerts us. What is supposed to be the most important information of the app seems to have technological error,” said S. Parvathi.
Also, the application does not have a facility to recharge metro cards as it redirects the user to the website.
An official from CMRL said, “Travel recharge fac-ility would soon be available on the app. The lag in metro timings happens due to the manual intervention of the train operator. He might reduce the speed when he enters a tunnel. However, we are working towards correcting the technical glitches,” he said.
