Cuba tests phone app to track buses

LAS TUNAS, Cuba, Sep 10 (ACN) The first field tests of an application for mobile phones that would allow to follow in real time the movement of the passenger transport buses have already begun.

The application named The Guagua (Cuban term for bus) was created by the Group of Development of Computer Applications, of the Eastern Community Computing Clubs group (Joven Clubs in Spanish).
The application, conceived for the Android operating system, is completed with a web platform where users could download it, Roberto Marto Ramírez, its main developer, told Periódico 26.
Using any of the two, he said, people will know how many vehicles are operational within the different routes and the precise location where they are.
"We want that in the future, even from a specific stop, people set their own alarms on their cell phones that would warn them of the arrival of the bus they want to board," he said.
For no less than ten days the movement of five cars from the two main routes in the city of Las Tunas is monitored by a small group of cell phones. As Pedro Jesús Abréu Gesen, head of the Group, explained there are still many details to be adjusted, above all, concerning the infrastructure within the Cuban Transport and Telecommunications companies (Etecsa), which will make La Guagua accessible to the population.
At present, in the base business unit (UEB) Las Tunas Pasaje are operating, approximately, fifty vehicles covering 11 routes in the urban area, nine to the rural communities, five in the suburban periphery and six to the municipalities.
Specialists from the Joven Clubs in Las Tunas insisted on the relevance that something like La Guagua would have, not only for the citizens but also for the government authorities here, who could evaluate live the performance of an activity of high impact for society such as urban transport.