In Delhi? Now you can book and track your auto on 'Pooch-O'

New Delhi: Now you can use your smartphone to hire an auto-rickshaw in the national capital with a new App “Pooch-O”, launched by Lt Governor Najeeb Jung on Friday. [caption id=“attachment_1614957” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AFP[/caption] Delhi Intergrated Multi-Model Transit System (DIMTS) has develped “Pooch-O”, which will allow users to locate autos fitted with GPS nearest to them and then call its driver, whose numbers are registered with DIMTS, on their mobile phone and book a trip. For now, Pooch-O can be downloaded only on Android phones from the Google Play store. A user has to ensure that they have enabled GPS before launching the app. They can then locate an auto nearest to them through maps. Launching Pooch-O at his secretariat, Jung said that it would be very useful especially to women travellers at night. “After booking an auto, commuters can share their travel details on Facebook and Twitter so that their friends and family members can get to know about their locations. Besides, there are several security elements in this app,” Jung told reporters. Jung also said that users can provide feedback on their travels through the app itself. “Pooch-O users can also calculate estimated fare for their trip and even track the auto to check if it is coming towards them or not after calling its drivers. This app will soon be available on iOS. Auto drivers will also be benifitted with this app as they will easily have passengers,” S N Sahai, managing director (DIMTS) said. Sahai said that there are 24,000 autos in Delhi which are fitted with GPS and hope that more autos will come under GPS so that a large number of people can be befitted with this app. Additonal CP (Traffic) Anil Shukla, who was also present, said that if a driver refused to take “Pooch-O” users, he would then be penalised with a heavy penalty. “Traffic police will be asked to connect this app to its website, their traffic apps so that if auto driver refuses commuters without any reason, strict action would be taken against them,” Jung said. PTI