I read yesterday that Railway minister Suresh Prabu met Google (or should I say Alphabet) officials to discuss the possibility of unearthing the enormous potential form the data of close to 8 billion people who use the Indian railway's service. Before you raise your eyebrow, the value of 8 billion passenger per day is supposedly due to people taking multiple trips a day. Oh boy that is more than the population of world.
It could indeed be a game changer for Indian railways, which is currently reeling under huge economic stress. Poor policy in past like introduction of train in routes based on political reasons and not based on economic considerations, ticket price not linked to railway's operational cost, and indiscriminate tariff for fright transport leading to drop in market share have lead to this situation. It would take years before the railways are financially healthy, because it is not possible to change such a big organisation in short span of time. However, the sear size could now be a big revenue generator for Indian railways. However it is still not clear what they plan to do. Also data privacy will be a big concern. In this age of data, if the Indian railways and Google (err.. Alphabet) team up to develop a viable possibility, it would indeed provide the much needed cushion for Indian railways to fund the optimistic modernization plan.
It could indeed be a game changer for Indian railways, which is currently reeling under huge economic stress. Poor policy in past like introduction of train in routes based on political reasons and not based on economic considerations, ticket price not linked to railway's operational cost, and indiscriminate tariff for fright transport leading to drop in market share have lead to this situation. It would take years before the railways are financially healthy, because it is not possible to change such a big organisation in short span of time. However, the sear size could now be a big revenue generator for Indian railways. However it is still not clear what they plan to do. Also data privacy will be a big concern. In this age of data, if the Indian railways and Google (err.. Alphabet) team up to develop a viable possibility, it would indeed provide the much needed cushion for Indian railways to fund the optimistic modernization plan.
No comments:
Post a Comment