The Hindu Business Line : Smart traveller

EXCITED about a trip to a foreign land? What are your plans? How do you propose to explore places of historical interest and exotic spots? Your hotel booking and sight-seeing tours can be planned in advance to fit your budget, but don't you want to explore some sites on your own instead of tagging to a guide wherever you go...

Do you think a city map alone should do to understand the topography? Though cabs are not difficult to find, think of the amount that you may have spent at the end of the day. Expense apart, you probably will realise that you've only had a glimpse of the countryside as the cab brushed past the scenes. Shelve your questions and worries, Google has developed a Transit Trip Planner, although the service, for now, is available only for the Portland, Oregon Metro area.

Google Transit Trip Planner will enable you to enter the specifics of your trip - where you intend to start/end up, the time of the day you would like to leave/arrive - transport schedules and information to plot out the most efficient possible, step-by-step, itinerary.

You can, with the trip planner, compare the cost of your trip with the cost of driving the same route for Google Transit provides directions using public transportation rather than driving directions.

It is currently a Google Labs product, yet to be integrated with Google Local. Google, meanwhile, is trying to get user feedback on how people really use public transportation data to develop and further improve the product.

A concept similar to Google Transit is available in the UK called the `Traveline Journey Planner.' This system allows users to enter the `from' and `to' (destination), which can be a town, street, postcode or address. It also enables users to specify the modes of transport, which could either be bus, coach, train, metro or ferry. Over and above this, the system also considers the walking distance to the next stop, when you fill in the very precise postcode. Just try by logging on to http://www.traveline.org.uk/.

Another system, which has become quite popular in Germany, is the EFA (Elektronische Fahrplanauskunft). Some of these systems cover large parts of Germany. And they also offer searches for public transport where you can take your bike along. To get the English version of this system, log on to

http://efa.vrr.de/vrr/XSLT_TRIP_REQUEST2?

language=en

It is not just going places any more. It is all about going places the smarter way..

lnr@thehindu.co.in

Picture by C.V. Subrahmanyam

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