Gotta Go Is Very Useful App To Find A Public Restroom Near You
Aggregation apps, to use the cliche, are the hottest things on mobile at the moment. There are apps that help you find restaurants around you, book an appointment for a doctor, and of course hail a cab. GottaGo keeps it very basic and helps you when nature calls.
GottaGo is a free app that lets you find nearby public restrooms with the tap of a button. When you are out and about – whether in your own city or travelling outstation – it helps in finding you a clean and hygienic restroom. The restrooms are displayed on a map with the distance from your location and directions of how to get there.
GottaGo currently lists over 10,000 restrooms mapped across malls, hotels, hospitals, restaurants, railway stations, museums et al. The Android app is currently available on the Google Play Store. The iOS app is in the works, and should be available on the App Store soon. No luck for Windows Phone users like me though.
The service is currently available for users in five cities – Mumbai, Pune, Delhi NCR, Bangalore, and Chennai. I’ve learnt that two more cities will be going live along with their iOS launch, and there are plans to expand to other cities over time.
At the moment, the data collection for the restroom database happens via the company’s local teams in each city, including some that they call ‘common sense’ and add themselves. The next obvious step is crowdsourcing of the database – a feature that will be included in the next update of the Android app.
“With the growing risk of infectious diseases such as urinary tract infection or other infections, we wanted to only list the cleanest options available. We had a few evangelists in every city go and check out these places before we listed them. We also built user feedback into the app which allows users to rate the options provided once they use the facility. They can also let us know if a restroom isn’t working any more or is shutdown.”
– Kunal Sheth, Founder, GottaGo
Incidentally, GottaGo was born as a website – p911.in – back in 2010, which listed information of restrooms, area-wise. Of course, on the smartphone, experience is better as it detects the location of the user using GPS, and directs the user through navigation that they are already familiar with.
So, next time you’re out shopping or in a park with your kids, fire the app when there’s ‘important business’ that needs to be taken care of. It’s free, and vanilla simple. Don’t forget to rate the restroom when you’re done, so others can benefit. www.homesearchindia.in