If Bono is to sing a song for the Indian roads, I am sure it would be “Where the streets have no name“.
The Indian streets really have no name – and if they have one, it isn’t used.
Moreover, the addresses in India aren’t structured at all. A Bangalore address reads as “X Cross, Y main, “, while an address in Delhi reads as “Near XYZ chowk, Sector-N”.
And that’s the major challenge with any map based solution. Be it Y! India maps, or Google – the maps are utterly useless when it comes to relevancy.
So, RouteGuru took the “Indian” way of locating an address – i.e. using landmarks. A typical route in RouteGuru reads as “take the left after restaurant X, pass by theatre Y on right..etc”
All you need to do is enter your source and destination addresses and RouteGuru will provide you the complete driving direction. You can SMS the direction to a mobile number too (for free).
RouteGuru is currently available in NCR region, but will very soon expand to other cities.
Areas of improvement:
One of the challenge I see for RouteGuru is with cities like Bangalore, where new one-ways are added every other week, which in turn means RouteGuru needs to update their route indexes very very frequently.
Also, I expect RouteGuru to use the “direction sense of community” to identify alternative route/path to the destination. Infact, they can start off with basic rating mechanism to rate whether the route presented is optimum or not (i.e. collect feedbacks from the end users, who might be just testing RouteGuru for relevancy).
If you are in Delhi, do give RouteGuru a spin and share your comments. I have asked couple of friends and looks like it works really well, but at the same time the directions are too detailed out (route has mentions of small restaurants which aren’t really landmarks and are too difficult to locate).
What do you guys say?
Overall speaking, RouteGuru is thinking out of the box and is solving a major pain (in the best possible manner). I am impressed and do look forward to their Bangalore edition.
tags: RouteGuru
Hmmm..when are they expanding in Bangalore?
Nice post (and the title:)..
I am impressed with RouteGuru! I agree with you that they are really thinking out of the box!..
Cool product..but how do they plan to monetize?
I used their SMS functionality! works really nice..
Aren’t they relying too much on the landmark data? How frequently do they update their index?
I completely agree with you that a place like Bangalore will be too tough for them..
Also, a landmark name isn’t standard at times.
I guess you hit the nail right there – many ppl will just test drive RouteGuru.
I am from Delhi (not staying currently though:(( , I have started playing with the routes – just for fun and to test the accuracy.
My feedback – Few routes are awesomely done.
But, at the same time – its too detailed. I may not need that level of details.
A feedback system should really be a good way to start with!
Good stuff man! your reviews are less gyaan and more on products
GOOD JOB MAN !!!!!
Really amazing !!!!
Guys
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your comments.
stay pluggd.in for my podcast with Avinash, founder of RouteGuru.
-Ashish
Hey Ashish,
Quite an honest and the best outline on routeguru among all the ones I found around.
RouteGuru needs to update their route indexes very very frequently.
Very true, hopefully routeguru will not disappoint Bangaloreans as well.
Community based building is another consideration for routeguru.
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I have been following routeguru since 2007 when it was featured at pluggd.in. However, it has been over 2 years now and the only city covered is the Delhi-NCR.
I guess Google’s crowd sourcing method scales quicker and I believe that is their (google’s) edge.