Digital live tracking and tracing tools are used by public transport passengers to share their trips either with policing and surveillance agencies or concerned individuals, in order to enhance their personal safety for the duration of their trip. The trip progress of the passenger and any untoward delays can be monitored. Policing and surveillance agencies can use live tracking information to locate victims or perpetrators of sexual harassment incidents timeously and improve their response time.

Examples of tools used for live tracking and tracing include Whatsapp1, Tell Tale, SafetiPin [2], and Safe Bus [1]. The Delhi Police have created a WhatsApp number wherein women can send photographs of auto-rickshaws or taxis they board. The details are forwarded to the police control room and preserved for a week. More importantly, the WhatsApp group is integrated with a control room so that, in case of an emergency, the nearest police control room or mobile patrolling vehicle can rush to the spot.

My SafetiPin is an app that has a safety tracker which acts as a ‘personal guardian’, using GPS navigation to allow the tracking of a person who has turned their ‘Track Me’ button on. The developers of My SafetiPin explain its operations as follows: “If you are travelling alone and are feeling unsafe, you can send a tracking request to a friend or loved one and they can see your exact location. The person tracking will also get notifications if you are in an unsafe area (based on our data) if you have been stationary for an extended period of time or if you divert from your selected route. The tracking feature gives all control to the user, and they can choose when to be tracked and when not.”

Apps, such as Safe Bus and TellTale provide enhanced location information by combining vehicle and personal phone tracking. In case of a sexual harassment incident, real-time location data is available to the police and other authorised parties immediately.