Description:

TravAlarm was created because people who live in the city that never sleeps can’t afford to be sidetracked by transit delays. Designed by busy technology professionals who were often affected by missed connections and late trains and busses, which made them late to important meetings, TravAlarm presents an effective and fun solution for busy commuters and travelers.

This new app will meet an immediate need because according to a​ 2​014 MTA report,​ m​ore and more subway trains are delayed. In a 6% jump in delays from 2013, about 25% of all New York City Transit subway trains from Oct. 2013 through Oct. 2014 were at least five minutes behind schedule. ​All total, 41,547 subway train delays were reported a month during that time — a 51% increase from the 27,457 per month average over the previous 12 months.

Co­founder Arka Bala expounds on the creation of TravAlarm: 'I got this idea when I took 3 hours to get to work one day due to a subway delay. I could have made it in an hour taking the train if I knew my regular subway station was closed. Straight away I knew that this was a problem that most people face, and an app that could look out for you instead of you having to manually check for delays would be really useful. I really think TravAlarm can help make sure you get to that important meeting on time.'

Available as a free download for Android and iOS8 devices, the TravAlarm app operates as a smart phone journey planner. The user has the ability to set alarms for specific trips and destinations and it differs from other transit apps in that it was uniquely built to a​lert commuters to delays on their usual transportation line and wake them up earlier, or send them notifications when they are prepping for appointments to avoid the hassle of running late and being forced to wait in cold or sweltering hot subway stations or out in the hot sun, rain or snow while waiting for their bus to arrive.

Also featured in the app is a built-in music player and alarm clock, which allows commuters to listen to their favorite tunes as they travel and set alarms at different points during their journey. This is great for business travelers who want to take a quick nap between train stops or students who want to make sure they are on time for class.

As an additional incentive for travelers, the designers of TravAlarm have also secured several promotional partnerships with local businesses such as coffee shops to reward customers with discounts and other goodies if they find themselves delayed. The promotions show right up in the app and can be redeemed right from their smart phones!

TravAlarm is the perfect traveling companion for the o​ver 8 million New Yorkers who use mass transit each week​who want technology that works to make their lives better!

TravAlarm Features: Delay Detector:

• TravAlarm monitors all planned journeys and their components in the background and will warn the user about delays on any of the components.

Journey Planner:

• With TravAlarm users can plan journeys anywhere in the world. One of the interesting features is the over lay of line status / delay information on journey map in the journey planner. We have are mixing line status information with journey panning data to make this possible.

Journey Tracker:

• Users will be able to track various components of the next planned journey if it is a over ground journey and GPS trackable. Ie if a journey comprises of walking, bus, train and subway. The user can track the train journey so that he is notified when he is close to the stop station of that train journey.

TravAlarm Pro: TravAlarm Pro to understand user behaviour, engagement level and various analytic & management tasks. Crowd sourced data stored in TravAlarm backed can be used to predict movement bottlenecks, create user location heat maps for real time and historical analysis.

Planned Features: Bluetooth Beacon Navigation: TravAlarm is also designing a feature where bluetooth beacons will be used to navigate users to indoor points of interest. Bluetooth beacons from Sonic Notify (www.sonicnotify.com) which can send beacon data using infra sound and bluetooth is being tested. This indoor navigation beacon network will generate crowd sourced data that will enable TravAlarm to detect where movement bottle necks are. This navigation will also be coupled with text to speech function (described next) that will guide disabled users. Beacons could also enable TravAlarm’s journey tracker feature to work without GPS which means users could be alerted about subway stops close by even when under ground.

Text to speech: TravAlarm is designing a feature where notifications and navigation instructions can be spoken to the users via spoken audio instructions. This feature will be beneficial to visually impaired users or users who are listening to music through TravAlarm.

About the TravAlarm team: TravAlarm i​s a company dedicated to the creation of applications and products that work to improve the lives of the masses. TravAlarm was born as a solution to the frustrations and delays of public transport suffered by the founders. Motivated by the desire to find a way of avoiding spending hours on cold platforms and being late for meetings, the founders created TravAlarm. Based in New York, London and San Francisco, the team is agile and intent on creating good experiences for its users.