Hyderabad Metro to launch ‘Tutem’ mobile app to embolden women’s safety

TUTEM (Technologies for Urban Transit to Enhance Mobility and Safe Accessibility), a new app for safe Metro travel especially for women, is going to be launched soon, said Hyderabad Metro Rail (HMR) managing director N.V.S. Reddy on Thursday.

The technology solution is being developed with financial support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and joint collaboration of BITS Pilani-Hyderabad, Hyderabad Police, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Bombay and HMR, and as per Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy’s directions on public safety, he said.

At a user workshop held at the BITS Pilani Hyderabad campus, Mr. Reddy stated that public transportation is the only solution to the increasingly complex traffic problems. He claimed that TUTEM app will significantly help women travellers reach their destination safely.

It will have a ‘Driver App’ and a ‘User App’ containing measures to safely transport travellers, especially women, to their respective destinations. While the majority of the journey happens through Metro rail, the app is designed to cover pre and post Metro travel as well — including walking, two-wheeler rides, cars, buses, or auto-rickshaws — to ensure a safe journey from home to the final destination.

New innovations

In case women travellers feel unsafe at any point during the journey, the app offers facilities to promptly alert the police control centre, and their family members and relatives, he explained. The MD also highlighted the importance of addressing socio-economic problems through engineering and technological solutions and expressed HMR’s commitment to new innovations.

HMR, which transports nearly half a million people daily to their destinations, has been offering environmental-friendly travel facilities to the city for the past seven years, he added.

BITS Pilani Vice-Chancellor V. Ram Gopal Rao said that several features have been incorporated into the TUTEM app for women’s safety even during late-night hours.

Technical experts are striving to extend the initiative to cities in the future. ADB representative Josephine Aquino, BITS Pilani campus director Soumyo Mukherjee, IIT Bombay’s Avijit Majhi, and BITS Pilani’s Prashanth Sahu participated in the event, said a press release.