When you arrive at an unknown city, the most worrying aspect would be the transport. Although all the cities have busses and taxies, you never know which is the right bus to catch or the right metro to take to reach your destination. Although the public transport is the cheapest means to move around, you often end up paying more for taxi or autos.
This is where Zophop can be of help. It is an Android app which provides you with detailed information on public transport (train, bus and metro) in major cities in India. You can the shortest route to take, the cheapest mode and also get live updates.
Zophop has a beautiful interface and provides you details of public transport in 12 cities in India. You can search for all public transport modes – bus, train, metro, monorail, and available cab services in your city.
For any selected city, you can check the schedules of public transport, get information about nearest cabs and also get route map for any destination. There are four main options in the app:
- Near you – You can find the bus stop, train stations, or even Uber and Ola Cab near you. When you click on the bus/train icons you get the most immediate departure details on the same screen.
- Take me somewhere – You can simply enter your destination by address or the name and it returns you a combination of public transport options optimized for cost and time.
- Check schedules – You can see the train/bus/others schedule on the app. You just enter the station names and you will get your entire route, with live timings, if available.
- Check in – This crowdsourcing initiative lets you share the status of the bus or train that you are on with other users. More interactive and real-time information will certainly provide better visibility on what is happening on your route. Also your inputs will be shared with other commuters who are waiting for the bus or train on the coming stations. The more people use this feature the better information everyone gets.
If you want to get to a location, you just need to enter the start and end point and the app will fetch you the best possible means to get to the place and also the rates and time required for each mode. This information is pretty useful for any person who is new to a city.
If you use the check in feature, which is a crowd sourced option, you also get an estimated time of arrival (ETA) to your destination, next stop updates with voice alerts. You can also share your live bus or train journey details with your friends and family.
Here is the list of supported agencies and cities:
- Mumbai – Local Train, BEST, NMMT, VVMT, MBMT, TMT, KDMT,Metro, Monorail, Uber, Ola
- Bangalore – Namma Metro, BMTC, Uber, Ola
- Delhi – Delhi Metro, DTC Buses, DIMTS Buses, Train, Uber, Ola
- Chennai – Chennai Metro, MTC, Uber, Ola
- Jaipur -Jaipur Metro, JCTS, Uber, Ola
- Chandigarh – CTU, Uber, Ola
- Bhubaneswar-Puri-Cuttack – DTS, Uber, Ola
- Kolkata – Metro, Local train, Uber, Ola
- Pune – PMPML, Uber, Ola
- Bhopal – BRTS, Uber, Ola
- Indore – AICTSL, Uber, Ola
- Hyderabad – RTC, Uber, Ola
Overall, the app has a very useful and functional interface and works as mentioned. The app is definitely handy for users travelling to new cities and looking to go around in public transport. As of now the cities are limited to just 12 in India, we hope more cities are added in future.
The app is available free from the Play store.
