This app could give Google Maps a run for its money

Photo credit: Allen Watkin.

If you live in south Delhi, chances are you think of a car as your own little palace-on-wheels (worth living and dying for), and it really hurts when this comfort is taken away, even for a day (a flat tyre or the odd-even rule, you never know).

For spoilt brats like you, I have a suggestion: look into your phone, try the app I am going to tell you about, and give the multiple modes of transport out there a chance.

From on-demand cabs and radio taxis to three-wheelers, the metro, and public buses, you will find a wide range of options at your disposal (for a car-lover like you, I’m blanking out walking and cycling info – though there’s that too).

It’s called Instago. You could call it a homegrown version of Google Maps and Moovit, only it is way more localized and detailed.

So if you’re in Gurgaon, you could get to bike taxis; in Mumbai, it could be a local train, and in Kolkata it could be that antiquated yet fascinating thing called a tram that runs on tracks right in the middle of a road, has long compartments, and rushes in like a fire engine!

Now imagine all this with details on routes, timings, duration, and cost. Sounds good?

The Instago founders

“We are simply surprised that no one else thought of it,” says co-founder Nakul Khanna, an ex-Google employee who launched it with friends Aneesh Seth and Anmol Ahlawat in April.

On the fast track

Instago is live in the US too, with Uber and Lyft on board. But to me, the 7,500 plus downloads it has seen in three months reflects the crying need for just one such thing in India, where digging out transport information is so tough.

You feed in the starting and finishing points, and the route flashes on your phone screen.

Press ‘Go,’ and you can choose between public and hired transport. Ola, Uber, Meru, and EasyCabs are among the cab services, with ETA, travel time, and cost displayed in a neat list for a quick comparison.

You can also find Jugnoo, Ola, and G-auto in the three-wheelers segment, and information on bus and metro stations in the public transport segment.

Reborn on the road

What works

Bumps on the road