Cabbies behind Bangalore maps on Google

“Cab drivers are the best when it comes to knowing the geography of the city and with a bit training in internet any cab driver can become a good map contributor,” Google India’s country head (products),Vinay Goel told reporters here.

“In Bangalore,we have our office cab drivers. They drop people in the morning and take them in the evening. They have nothing to do in between. So,we give them maps and they work with our people in our lab.

“Many of them have the advantage of knowledge of the city and hence started mapping for us. There are a couple of drivers who contributed heavily to the map-making,” Goel said.

To a query on use of cab drivers for the same purpose in other cities,he said it depended on their interest and knowledge in internet.

“For other cities,we cannot say because we don’t know how many of them are trained in internet. We have not reached out to them directly but if they have passion they can participate,” he added.