If you ride a bus, tram, or train in India and use Google Maps to help you get where you need to be, you're about to get some useful, timely information. The company has not just been working to expand its availability of transit scheduling information, but improve upon its accuracy. In 10 of the largest Indian cities, commuters will be able to see live India Railways train statuses, traffic-impacted bus trip times, and new navigation suggestions tat integrate auto-rickshaw into other public transit modes.

If you're navigating to a destination in these cities and will need to use a public bus to navigate there, Google will account for local traffic and disclose the expected amount of delay in its directions. If the bus is on-time, the ETA will be listed in green. If it's delayed, it will listed in red.

The cities are:

  • Bangalore
  • Chennai
  • Coimbatore
  • Delhi
  • Hyderabad
  • Lucknow
  • Mysore
  • Mumbai
  • Pune
  • Surat

If you take a long-haul journey through India Railways, Google is now tracking train delays through methods it has developed from its acquisition of the local Where is My Train app last year.

Google Maps is now also suggesting auto-rickshaws for certain segments of journeys in Delhi and Bangalore that would otherwise require longer walks. Estimated meter fares are listed right in the directions for the itinerary. This feature is expected to arrive in more cities soon.

The traffic and auto-rickshaw features might not be the most perfect features as situations on the roadways may change and hailing down a driver might be a little difficult at times. But they're overall great additions to giving Indians a better sense of how they can manage their time while going places.

Source: Google