IIT Madras researchers develop mobile app for inter-city goods logistics

IIT Madras researchers have designed and developed a mobile application to enable easier transportation of goods within cities.

The app is called ‘OptRoute’ and is available on Google Play Store.

This app connects a driver with the consumer and does not take any commission or on-boarding fee.

The payment from the consumer goes directly to driver, with no intermediaries, say IIT Madras researchers.

The App is already deployed for 21 cities across India ranging from Delhi and Chandigarh to Kolkata and Indore besides Chennai and Coimbatore, say IIT Madras researchers.

IIT Madras researchers

The first version of the App has been developed and commercialised through OptRoute Logistics, an IIT Madras-incubated start-up co-founded by Prof. N.S. Narayanaswamy, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Madras and Mr. Anuj Fulia, an IIT Madras alumnus.

The basic ideas behind the App were presented during the 2020 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (https://doi.org/10.1145/3377930.3389804) held in Cancun, Mexico.

The start-up has also developed packing and efficient vehicle space utilization methods, which will be included in the application once sufficient initial traction is achieved, say IIT Madras researchers.

Resolve

Highlighting the problems this app sets out to eventually resolve, Prof. Narayanaswamy, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Madras, said, “OptRoute aims to solve the issues in connectivity between drivers and customers in the goods logistics and transport domain.

The main issues faced are unavailability of return load for transporters and vehicle capacity under-utilization. Current market of this domain is highly unorganized making it inefficient, said Prof Narayanaswamy, one of the IIT Madras researchers.

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It is also ripe for deployment of technology based solutions to reach the goals set by the National Logistics Policy, 2022, he said.

Lightweight

Mr. Anuj Fulia, Co-founder, OptRoute Logistics, and an IIT Madras alumnus, added, “We have developed a lightweight mobile application where customers and drivers can get connected.

OptRoute does not use any third-party services allowing us to cut down the cost of operation to an absolute minimum and because of the same reason we are able to provide our service with zero percent commission, said Anuj, who is also among the IIT Madras researchers.

‘This design and development has had a significant contribution done by alumni and students of IIT Madras.’

By the end of this year, we will scale our service to be available in more than 500 cities, said Mr. Anuj.

User modes

The OptRoute application has two user modes – Driver and Customer. In the Customer mode, users can place any goods transport request for which a vehicle is needed, say IIT Madras researchers.

In the Driver mode, users can view the available requests and accept them, say IIT Madras researchers.

Key points

The key points of differences between OptRoute and existing services include:

Ø Zero-commission per transaction and nominal subscription based service model

Ø Direct payment from consumer to driver

Ø High scalability of the software system and operations

Ø A single app for both drivers and customer

Operational use

The OptRoute app is available for Android devices and can be installed from Google Play Store, say IIT Madras researchers.

It is currently available for operational use in multiple cities across India, including Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Faridabad, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Indore.

It is also available in Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Noida, Panchkula, Pune, Mohali, Surat and Zirakpur, say IIT Madras researchers.

About IIT Madras

Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) was established in 1959 by the Government of India as an ‘Institute of National Importance.’

The activities of the Institute in various fields of Science and Technology are carried out in 17 academic departments and several advanced interdisciplinary research academic centres.

The Institute offers undergraduate and postgraduate programs leading to B.Tech., M.Sc., M.B.A., M.Tech., M.S., and Ph.D., degrees in a variety of specializations.