As one of the biggest mobility data companies of India that maps almost 4.5 crore kilometres of roads every day and has geo codes for more than 1.4 crore places of the country, the intention of Intents Mobi is to provide drivers with information about the safest routes possible, says the company’s founder Tabrez Alam in this exclusive interview with N. Balasubramanian
Let’s start with a brief background about Intents Mobi. For what purpose was the company founded? What is your goal or vision for the automotive and road transport industry?
Intents Mobi was started as a social cause initiative by Naresh Kumar Kachhi and me to map the dangerous road conditions in the country and alert people. The idea germinated when I, during a travel with my wife, who was pregnant with twins, realised the dangers of hitting even a tiny pothole while driving, which could have been highly detrimental to the health and wellbeing of my wife as well as our unborn children. The problem seemed graver when reports indicated that more than 3,000 people in India die due to accidents caused by potholes alone. So basically, the purpose of our company was limited to road safety when it all began.
However, during the course of building the technology, some glaring facts were uncovered for mobility and location data itself. For example, millions of addresses on maps are wrong or do not exist as data on traditional maps is never verified and updated at a low frequency. We intend to map the data of the country all over again with layers of information that have not been captured before. Further, each of the data points that we capture and make available is 100% verified information. With this data, we want to make it accessible to all sectors irrespective of the size or type of the organisation.
For example, in the Indian logistics industry, 2% of the overall cost is just due to damage and repair of vehicles. For a consumer, the carbon emission can be reduced by 5% if we are able to route people to the right destinations through right roads. We already are among one of the biggest mobility data companies of India wherein we map almost 4.5 crore kilometres of roads every day and have geo codes for more than 1.4 crore places of the country. The potential of location and mobility data is immense if we make it accessible to everyone. Thus, our vision is to democratise location and mobility data.
We are seeing how data has the power to revolutionise a sector and lead to potential breakthroughs and the mobility and transport sector is an important one reaping the benefits. What role do you see data playing in this arena in the Indian context and how are you supporting the same?
Location data is one of the biggest markets right now. Unfortunately, the data available right now from industry leaders in the mobility sector has many problems. It’s not accurate, it’s outdated and it is not verified. In fact, a lot of data that businesses need in their operations does not currently exist. Useful and verified data is one of the most important and valuable commodities today. And accurate location data can create a lot of solutions that are not available right now. That is why we are starting from the base, collecting highly categorised and concise data that will add value to the mobility sector.
We have a community of 1 million gig workers who collect data for us in real time using their smart phone. Our AI-powered technology verifies and analyses this data before providing it to clients. We collect traffic data, points of interest data, and road condition data like potholes, bumps, broken road patches, historical probe data, driver behaviour, etc. More importantly, because of our gig worker community, we provide image backed-data so it is easy for users to understand. Intents Mobi is creating a market for businesses and enterprises in terms of location data.
What are the products and services you currently offer? Which are your key target vehicle segments, (two-wheelers, passenger cars, commercial vehicles, etc.) and who are your main target stakeholders in the mobility and transportation ecosystem?
We have multiple offerings, one of them being location data as a service. We provide custom location data such as traffic, geo codes, navigation data, incidents, road conditions, electric vehicle stations and more as per the business’s specific requirements. Secondly, we offer efficient mapping APIs like geo coding and reverse geo coding APIs, distance matrix APIs, road and directions APIs, navigation APIs and other custom-built APIs. These APIs are map-agnostic, fast and powerful and cost-effective compared to our competitors.
Along with this, we have our own navigation app called Intents Go. Currently, all navigational apps work on finding the fastest route from Point A to Point B. But in a country like India, road conditions play a major role in deciding the route. The smaller route may be full of potholes, or a particular route may be too small for trucks or cars. Intents Go takes into consideration road conditions like potholes, bumps, road breakage due to weather, vehicle pliability and differentiated traffic to provide a safe route for you.
We also have TaskByte, a gig-working platform where users can earn money by performing simple tasks like taking a photo of a shop, an EV charging station, or even just driving around for a few kilometres. Our services are not focused on a particular vehicle type. We have vehicle pliability and differentiated traffic data that provide personalised data as per your vehicle. Our client base is vast. Currently, we provide data to top mapping companies in India but our clients are not limited to the mobility industry. Location data is something that can be utilised by a lot of industries be it banking, financial services and insurance, automotive, media and advertising, logistics, ride-hailing, food delivery, etc.
India is known for its dubious records when it comes to road safety and deaths due to road accidents. Do you see things heading in the right direction when it comes to road safety in India? What more do you think the different stakeholders need to do to take safety to the next level on our roads?
Sadly, the condition of the roads is the reason Intents Mobi was started. There are more than 3,000 deaths every year just due to potholes. Road accidents are a major cause of injuries and deaths and contribute to around 5% loss in GDP. There are a lot of efforts made by the government to improve the road infrastructure so as to increase safety, while there are also a lot of campaigns to spread awareness about road safety. But there is a long way to go and until then we can use apps like Intents Go that provide alerts about dangerous road patches and drive safely to avoid fatal accidents.
We are working with ‘India Against Road Crash’ and others to spread awareness and eventually bring about a behavioural change in India about road safety. As mentioned before, we have historical traffic and probe data and driver behaviour data. So, with time, users of Intents Go will try to score higher points which will lead to a behavioural change. Additionally, with our data, a lot of future development like smart City projects, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, business location research and more is possible.
How are Intents Mobi and its offerings different from what is already available in the market? Could you share any brief examples where your uniqueness has stood out and helped customers?
Intents Mobi has been collecting data layers from scratch in less time and cost as compared to competitors that took decades to do it. Within just a year, Intents Mobi reached every block of 500 x 500 metres of the country and currently has 15 x 15 metre grid accuracy. Spread across all of India, we have data sets with addresses, millions of points of interest, static electric vehicle charging stations, road conditions, vehicle pliability, short range RF patterns and incident data. Our USP is the data – it is fresh, accurate and verified. The data is constantly updated to reflect the ever-changing geo codes, road conditions and traffic data in India.
It is processed with our proprietary AI and ML tools with more than 95% accuracy for various data sets. We have top-notch AI algorithms to process and verify the collected data to provide up-to-date POIs. We provide custom mapping and location APIs that have more efficiency than the ones in the market currently. Intents Mobi APIs are powerful enough to process a 1,000 x 1,000 matrix in less than 10 seconds. Our APIs are 160 times faster than Google and can help you with up to 80% cost reduction. Coming to our navigational app, Intents Go provides safety alerts about potholes and uneven roads while you are driving, which is not provided by any other navigational company in India. Most importantly, we have a top-notch team that aims to disrupt the mobility industry in India.
What are your medium to long-term plans for growth and expansion? How big is your company now in terms of workforce and revenue and where do you see yourself by 2030?
We are an Indian company and would want to focus on India only for the near future as we understand that the potential of location and mobility data is massive in India. While we started with data as a service company, we have made the natural evolution of now providing both data as well as mobility intelligence though our APIs. The next step of growth that we foresee is building solutions for various verticals such a marketing and discover, digital advertising, insurance and micro lending, and much more.
We believe that the potential of mobility and location data, the way we see it today, is only the tip of the iceberg. Ten years down the line we would want to be seen as a pioneer in this field by making the data available and accessible to all. As for our team, we are a small team of 19 members and we do not intend to grow in just numbers but our strengths and technical capabilities. We have always been following the principle of technology first and hence would be investing a lot in AI which has been integral part of the technology that we have built.