RouteGuru..competing with the paanwalas for road directions

RouteGuru is an online webapp for finding ‘practically-usable’ driving directions in your city. What makes it unique is its emphasis on providing directions in the good old Indian way i.e. using landmarks. For typical direction algorithms like those used in the western world (which are usually based on Road / Street Names or numbers) do not work in developing countries like India, where cities are poorly planned and road / street names are often unmarked. RouteGuru believes that in serving this need, its nearest competitors are the road-side paanwalas / auto rickshaw drivers.

The application is being built by a Delhi based company called Nanvolve, whose founders have significant experience in the GIS domain. RouteGuru is currently in alpha and readers of this blog are requested to test the application and provide actionable feedback to its creators.

RouteGuru’s direction generation algorithm relies heavily on features that are conceived and implemented for the Indian scenario e.g. use of landmarks like overhead tanks, important buildings, institutes, flyovers ; use of ‘Nth turn at the roundabout’ in combination with the road name etc. The route directions are displayed in a tabular form and they can be printed or forwarded via email/SMS. The service is planned to be free to consumers, with the revenue model oriented towards serving businesses. Having started with road directions, RouteGuru plans to introduce online maps and allow access through mobile. The service is presently available only in Delhi-NCR. I tried out a few sample queries for Delhi routes and the results seemed quite accurate and reliable.

RouteGuru seems aligned towards building a product that is customized for the Indian user and that’s HUGELY creditable. But having reviewed a few mapping web applications earlier on this blog, its strategy of starting with routes and then progressing towards maps seems counter intuitive. I posed this question to Avinash Agrawal, who heads RouteGuru and he replied that while maps are good for getting a bird’s eye view of the route, detailed directions are not possible using online maps. That’s a fair argument but what also needs answering is whether a sustainable and substantial business can be built around serving road navigation & route directions. Given their GIS domain expertise, the RouteGuru team certainly believes so.

Other mapping applications previously covered-

- Yahoo launches YahooMaps for India..looks good, works well
- MapmyIndia rocks Indian Web2.0 with GoogleMap type digitised mapping
- MapmyIndia adds killer feature…embedding map snippets into blogs, websites
- OnYoMo….making life better in Delhi & Bangalore
- Mapunity…a social development focused GIS solution