2021 in review: what we achieved together this year
2021 was a big year for all of us at WhereIsMyTransport. From helping clients and partners like Google and the World Bank deliver smarter solutions in emerging markets, to raising $14.5 million during our Series A extension, and launching Rumbo — our first consumer product in Latin America and Asia. This year was filled with milestones, and we want to take the opportunity to share some of our highlights with you.
Data in action
At WhereIsMyTransport, we produce high-quality mobility and location data for emerging-market megacities. Our data makes it possible for organisations to understand the mobility ground truth in these markets, and the vast opportunities within them.
This year, we saw Google enrich the Google Maps user experience in Mexico City using our transit data. Google Maps now offers a more localised user experience, providing people with reliable information from all public transport modes. Their powerful trip-planning algorithm considers all options, which can now include formal government-run Metro and bus systems as well as flexible informal modes — locally known as colectivos.
Additionally, thanks to our ongoing involvement in the Development Data Partnership — home to data partners like Cuebiq and Mapbox, and development partners like World Bank and the IMF — our data was used to support a multimillion dollar public transport investment in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Unlocking new markets
Our team was also busy producing and maintaining high-quality mobility and location data in nine different cities, bringing our total coverage to over 45 cities. And launching our consumer product, Rumbo, in three of them.
In addition to providing users in Mexico City, Lima, and Bangkok with reliable journey information for every public transport mode, Rumbo is also an integral part of our business model. App users can contribute information — like new routes or incidents affecting public transport services — supporting their communities and helping further ensure the accuracy and reliability of our data.
This powerful combination of on-the-ground data collection teams and user contributions results in high-quality data across all layers of our data offering: Transit Data, Point of Interest (POI) Data, and Real-Time Alerts.
A multi-layered approach
Thanks to our data collection work this year, you now can access accurate, reliable, and complete transit data for an additional 101 public transport agencies in emerging-market megacities across the Majority World. This includes government-run transport modes like Bangkok’s Skytrain and Lima’s Metro, and flexible informal modes, such as Dar es Salaam’s daladalas.
In total, and in this year alone, we produced and maintained data freshness for an additional 10,629 public transport routes which, combined, cover 393,131km. That’s enough to take us on almost 10 trips around the world!
But our data collection teams didn’t stop there. Our newly expanded data offering saw us digitalise thousands of POIs from centres of economic activity — 90% of which are not available from other major location data providers. And, we created 29,730 unique real-time alerts, helping organisations and our own product users adapt to changing conditions, make informed decisions, and generate valuable insights.
We are delighted we get to share these accomplishments with our clients, partners, and our team. Here’s to continuing this journey together in 2022.
