The Road Trip Companion

Birds, bees and trees have all woken to the arrival of rains. It's the perfect time to hit the road, and so you have. Now, what are the top three services you require on-the-go? Restaurants, toilets and petrol pumps, perhaps? The app Highway Delite covers it all, plus more. 

On Play Store you'll easily find this android-enabled application – a black location mark, bearing the initials HD in yellow, divided vertically by continuous white lines that are as symbolic of roads as the rest of the logo. Now you have three options – 'View Verified Routes', 'Search Along Route' and 'Search Near Me'. Unlike most highway apps, you don’t merely get to ‘view’ and ‘search’ information on toll booths and restaurants, but also fuel stations, washrooms, hotels/lodges, vehicle service providers/stations like rentals as well as repair work and even toll booths, emergency numbers, medical aid and pharmacies, accident zones, ATM machines and tourist attractions. A couple of apps, offer some of these too, but while they derive their information from Google and Zomato, all the information on Highway Delite has been personally verified.

Idea to inception

A mechanical engineer and MBA, 34-year-old Rajesh Ghatanatti would travel a lot in the hinterland at his last job with a Bengaluru based consulting agency that provided corporate advisory services. "Unlike in urban areas, on most highways, it's not easy to find basic amenities. Other travellers complained about accidents and emergency numbers. That's how the idea of Highway Delite struck me; I'm taking a comprehensive approach, trying to provide information on all necessities".

Having no business background, it was a “tough to quit“, but Ghatanatti forged ahead with his faith in the idea. Family support helped and as did being from defense family, which ensured he's used to venturing into the unknown, restarting life at new places and with new people, every three years.

For about five months, he did the initial recce at a few highways by conducting customer surveys and speaking to vendors to whet his idea and in May 2015 he incorporated Param People Infotech Solutions Pvt. Ltd. A questionnaire and phone camera in hand and with only a student intern to help, he started verifying facilities and collecting data in all earnestness.

“I outsourced the initial product development for the app, but for the first 2,000 km – covering highways from Bangalore-Mysore, -Hyderabad, -Tirupati and certain parts of Goa via Belgaum –  I did the groundwork myself,“ recalls Ghatanatti. The app was launched in November and in the same month IIM Bangalore agreed to give him seed capital.

Paving miles, conquering milestones 

A few month later, in 2016 he applied for the ‘Start-up Karnataka Grand Challenge' that funds IT-led innovations. Clearing two qualifying rounds, Highway Delite along with seven other applicants (out of 160) was awarded a grant (HD received Rs. 25 lakhs) in March this year. The  mandate is to cover 25,000 km of Karnataka's highways. With two technical staff, one for data entry and one operations, he runs a tight ship, but has already completed work for 5,000 km and plans to finish the rest in the next three months. “I have tied up with college students as it's a state project and train them as per our requirements“.

For a deep dive

Although 70% of the 21 highways they have scanned are close to Bangalore, they have also managed to cover some from Delhi, Indore, Guwahati and Shillong. As they travel more miles to achieve greater miles stones, they are detailing the services further. From the initial version that only allowed you to search the route and get some basic information, the app now allows for deviations – for instance, if you've taken the coastal route to Goa instead of the highway, you can search amenities on it too. Or if you’re looking for restaurants, the app allows you to filter them with about 20 criteria including specially enabled access, credit card acceptance, wi fi, play area, CCTV, parking and pet friendliness. For ones that meet your needs, you get the location, distance and verified contact details. Like wise you can filter petrol pumps with close to 30 criteria or narrow down any all the other services as per your needs. You can search amenities even if you don’t sign up, but will have to do so if you wish to avail discounts. For unverified routes, information is extrapolated from Google maps.

A couple of weeks ago, Ghatanatti has tied up banks and vendors on verified highways to enable payment for services directly through the app.

More to come...

But won’t the information become obsolete at some point? To tackle such an eventuality his solution is two pronged. “Vendors are encouraged to use our merchant app to update information and users have the option of doing so too. As not all vendors are conversant in English, we are going to introduce ten languages on the merchant app to make usage easier“. Besides pointing people out eateries, he also wants to be able to recommend specialties of each and direct users to the best source for a dish they want.