Slashdot Mirror
Google Transit Now In Beta
KIondike writes "Google's introduced Google Transit, a new Lab product where users (or, "people") can map trips around their city using public transit. From the Google Blog: 'With it, commuters will be able to easily access public transit schedules, routes, and plan trips using their local public transportation options. This first release covers only the Portland, Oregon metro area, but we are working to expand our coverage very soon.' The amount of data they give seems very comprehensive, including time you'll spend walking to the bus or subway, and the amount of money it would cost compared to driving."
The examples are: e.g., "pdx to 100 nw couch st, portland, oregon" or "pdx to portland, oregon at 7pm"
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
So not only can google track my email, what I search for, but now they know where I planning on traveling too!
The problem with most transit systems and websites is that, like your link, they assume you already know what bus/train/etc. you want to take. What this service (and many 'trip planners') do is allow you to simply input the start and end locations, and it will determine what route(s) can be used and show you how to get there.
The DC Metro system has had a trip planner availabe for years now:
Metro Trip Planner
I always though that most major metro areas with well-developed public transit systems had something like this.
Yeah, I'd have to agree that www.tri-met.org is still better. I live in Portland, OR, and Tri-met has a much better system already.
1) Tri-met gives me the shortest way with respect to TIME. Google sends me transfering to different busses all over the place to have the shortest distance.
2) I can get directions from Tri-met by simply going Milwaukie Transit Center to Portland State University. Google wants addresses, which I have to find first. Google does not have a very good list of landmarks (atleast here in Portland).
3) The price Google gives is WRONG. The cost is based off the zones you go through. To go through all three zones, it costs $1.75, not $1.50. I don't even know where $1.50 comes from. It's $1.35 for 2 zones. $1.75 for all 3 zones. This is obviously still beta.
Just the other day, I actually got lost trying to use Google Maps while driving to my new internship (driving there on the first day sounded like a good plan), but because Google maps gives all these gov't road names like US 26-10. The signs obviously don't say things like this, it was terrible. I got better directions from a 76 (a gas station).
Google really need to add landmarks to everything. This would make it actually useful rather than a little toy that looks really useful from the computer screen.
Maybe theyre calculating the cost of maintenance that accumulates as you drive... i.e oil change, oil filter, air filter, fluid replacement ($20 here, $10 there it adds up)....Chances are if youre driving a junker, its costing you more than just gas to get reliably from point A to point B
One aspect of this service that I'm looking forward to is a single interface for transit info, no matter which system I'm using. Users only need to learn the Google interface, not the subtle nuances of different sites.
Some MAX stations simply don't seem to exist to Google Transit, especially on the westside blue line, and the streetcar seems to be absent too. Since this is Portland, OR only, it didn't seem to localize very well unless the city and state was added to the address. Thankfully, TriMet's Trip Planner does a much better job!
Hell google search was a dup of the other search engines :)
I think their point of difference is it doesn't need a download and will be integrated with all their other search functions.
I'm sure Metro is great but google's offering is quite different.