Bhavish Aggarwal, founder and CEO of Ola, is urging developers to transition from Google Maps to Ola Maps. To facilitate this shift, Ola is offering developers a year of free access to Ola Maps via the company’s Krutrim Cloud, along with over Rs 100 crore in free credits. This move follows Ola’s decision to replace Google Maps with its own mapping service, resulting in annual savings of approximately Rs 100 crore. Additionally, Aggarwal has recently migrated Ola’s operations from Microsoft Azure to Krutrim Cloud.
“After #ExitAzure, it’s time for Indian developers to #ExitGoogleMaps! Enjoy one year of free access to Ola Maps on @Krutrim, with more than Rs 100 crore in free credits,” Aggarwal announced on X on Monday.
He added, “We’ve relied on Western apps for mapping India for too long, and they fail to address our unique challenges like street names, urban changes, complex traffic, and non-standard roads. Ola Maps addresses these issues with AI-powered algorithms tailored to India, real-time data from millions of vehicles, and significant contributions to open source (5 million+ edits last year!).”
In a blog post, Ola explained that as the world emerged from the pandemic in 2021, the company aimed to develop innovative features for its customer and partner apps. However, reliance on Western mapping providers, who did not prioritize India, hindered these plans.
“Our dependence on Western mapping providers, who didn’t focus on India, limited our ability to implement these features. To truly serve our users and push the boundaries of mobility, we needed a mapping solution that was better suited to the Indian market and more responsive to our unique needs. This realization led to the creation of Ola Maps,” the blog post stated.
Ola intends to develop maps not just for current needs but also for future mobility innovations like autonomous vehicles, flying taxis, and drones. This requires maps that are detailed, dynamic, and intelligent. The company began this ambitious project three years ago.
Existing mapping providers often fall short in addressing the specific challenges faced by Indian users, presenting a unique opportunity for Ola and Indian developers. Many streets and rural areas are either poorly mapped or not mapped at all, and street names frequently vary. Constant changes to streets, potholes, and road quality issues further complicate mapping and affect travel time and safety.
Ola Maps aims to provide accurate, up-to-date maps with features tailored to local needs, such as multi-language support, local business listings, and culturally relevant landmarks, while ensuring that critical location data remains within Indian borders.
Ola leverages AI, open-source resources, and India’s vast talent pool to create maps that are efficient, contextually relevant, accurate, and safe. Ola Maps utilizes a diverse array of data sources, including real-time data from millions of vehicles, a fleet of Ola S1 scooters equipped with 360 cameras, open-source government data, OpenStreetMap, and proprietary sources. The platform handles over a million search queries daily and has contributed 5.43 million edits to OpenStreetMap in the past year.
The sophisticated data platform processes over 5 million messages per second from various sensors and telemetry sources. Ola Maps is now operational across the Ola ecosystem, with tens of thousands of users relying on it daily for guided commutes within their cities.
