Bus users become the object of competition. Will Amap become popular again after TFBOYS endorses it?

"Edison Chen took the wrong road because he used Lin Chiling's voice pack on AutoNavi Maps, which led to him cursing at Chiling on Weibo." Recently, an unexpected incident in the entertainment industry made AutoNavi Maps popular again.

Although Amap responded immediately, " We are not responsible for this! ", this incident still shows how popular Amap's voice pack is.

At the end of 2013, Lin Chi-ling officially became the spokesperson for AutoNavi Maps and Navigation products. She subsequently launched a navigation voice package, which increased AutoNavi Maps downloads by more than six times the usual amount, thus starting the road to AutoNavi's celebrity voice package.

After being acquired by Alibaba, AutoNavi Map has been making great strides since then. After using voice packs of celebrities such as Lin Chiling and Guo Degang, it once again invited the popular mainland idol group TFBOYS to endorse it, and launched the AutoNavi AI smart bus navigation solution, which can use AutoNavi Map's big data and machine learning capabilities to provide users with smart navigation travel solutions for bus travel.

Following private car users, map providers’ battle for public transport users has officially begun.

Public transportation products with different user needs need to be upgraded urgently

Nowadays, the needs of driving and riding users have received much attention, and there are many industry innovations, but the needs of public transportation users, which account for a larger proportion in the travel field, have received less attention. Traditional public transportation travel methods urgently need to be upgraded. According to the "Beijing Municipal Transportation Commission's 2015 Commuter Transportation Report", since 2005, the proportion of public transportation in Beijing people's travel methods has increased year by year, and by 2015, the proportion has exceeded 50%, higher than other modes of transportation such as cars and bicycles. As the proportion of public transportation increases year by year, people's public transportation needs have become more and more complex.

With the development of mobile map products, people have transitioned from PC to mobile maps. Using mobile maps to check routes and navigate buses anytime and anywhere is more flexible, with clearer guidance and more in line with public transportation needs. But even so, map products still find it difficult to solve the "pain points" of many public transportation users. For example, how to better plan travel time and routes suitable for each user based on road traffic conditions, real-time bus schedules, characteristics of urban bus routes, and user travel preferences requires a lot of big data computing capabilities and machine learning capabilities for intelligent planning. These are problems that many map products cannot solve.

Faced with the personalized public transportation travel needs that have long been "different for different people", public transportation travel products urgently need to be upgraded.

Public transportation enters the 3.0 era AI learning creates live maps

Dong Zhenning, vice president of AutoNavi Maps, divides users' public transportation into three eras. The first is the 1.0 era of public transportation, when people mainly use PC maps to search for relevant routes before taking a bus, and then take the bus according to the route description; in the 2.0 era of public transportation products, users rely on mobile phones for public transportation navigation anytime and anywhere, and the AI ​​(artificial intelligence) smart public transportation navigation launched by AutoNavi Maps has brought public transportation products into the 3.0 era marked by AI intelligence.

It is understood that in terms of big data applications, 100% of the bus data on Amap is manually collected and verified, covering more than 331 cities across the country, with a total of 75,000 bus routes, more than 1.58 million kilometers, and nearly one million stops. Each route has more than 130 route attributes. Amap monitors more than 1,000 pieces of real-time bus intelligence every day, and can update the latest data online within 10 minutes. It can 100% solve user feedback problems and put data online within 24 hours. Real-time bus, real-time traffic conditions, and user behavior big data inherit Amap's consistent real-time data advantages, and plan the most time-saving, labor-saving and personalized bus routes for users.

In terms of machine learning capabilities, AutoNavi's AI smart bus navigation uses the dual-layer machine learning capabilities of the left and right brains. The left brain learns the travel model, learns different travel decisions based on different scenarios such as user region, distance, duration, and tools, and forms a travel decision model; while the right brain learns the user's behavioral preferences, and provides users with time-saving, labor-saving, and comfortable services based on the user's location data, travel data, and feedback data.

As of now, AutoNavi Map has more than 600 million users. According to the 2016 Spring APP Strength Ranking released by Guishi Mobile, the year-on-year growth rate of AutoNavi Map's MAU (monthly active users) in the spring of 2016 exceeded 130%, and the year-on-year growth rate of AutoNavi Map's DAU (daily active users) reached 189.1%.

The launch of the AI ​​public transportation navigation product of AutoNavi Maps means that the market competition in the field of public transportation, where users are concentrated, will become increasingly fierce. However, judging from the launch event today, at least after inviting TFBOYS to endorse it, AutoNavi will definitely be able to attract a large number of loyal fans and users.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.