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Stuck for 2 hours in Bengaluru traffic, EaseMyTrip co-founder pledges ₹1 crore to fix it
Prashant Pitti is willing to invest in AI engineers and infrastructure to address Bengaluru's traffic, needing cooperation from city officials for data access.
Prashant Pitti, co-founder of EaseMyTrip, has pledged ₹1 crore to identify and fix Bengaluru’s worst traffic choke points using artificial intelligence and Google Maps data.
In a post shared on X (formerly Twitter), Pitti expressed frustration after spending over two hours covering just 11 km on Outer Ring Road (ORR) late Saturday night. He said he was stuck for 100 minutes at a single intersection with no signal or traffic police in sight.
“I don’t want one more Bengaluru traffic meme or rant. I want to fix it,” Pitti wrote. Referring to Google Maps’ recently launched “Road Management Insight” tool, which offers city-level traffic data in BigQuery format, he proposed a tech-led solution using satellite imagery and AI to identify bottlenecks and their exact timings across the city.
(Also Read: ‘Time to leave Bangalore’: Fed-up commuter’s rant goes viral, Hyderabad seen as the way out)
Check out his post here:
Pitti said he is willing to fund one or two senior ML/AI engineers, along with the cost of Google Maps API calls, satellite imagery access, and GPU infrastructure required to process the data. However, the project depends on Bengaluru Traffic Police (BTP) or BBMP opening their raw traffic data or APIs and assigning a dedicated team to act on the insights generated.
He urged the public to support the initiative by tagging traffic officials, encouraging AI professionals to join the project, and amplifying the message to ensure it reaches the right authorities. “Bangalore is India’s tech future,” Pitti said. “And the people making it happen deserve much better.”
How did X users react?
The response to Prashant Pitti’s post was largely positive, with many users expressing eagerness to join the initiative. Several professionals from the AI/ML space stepped forward, offering their time and expertise to support the traffic decongestion project.
“Hey Prashant, interested in contributing,” one user wrote, while another commented, “Hi Prashant. We have done some work on this already. Happy to connect.”
A user who had been contemplating a similar initiative said, “I am interested to work. I was thinking about this for a long time but never took any initiatives. Happy to see you’ve planned this. I’d love to be part of the AI/ML team.”
Another user pointed out a prior submission made to the government, writing, “Regarding the architectural proposal submitted to the ministry via email to address traffic management, I am pleased to learn that our perspectives align. I am available to share the proposal, discuss its details, and collaborate on its implementation.”
(Also Read: Bengaluru’s Ejipura flyover finally back on track, BBMP eyes year-end completion)
