One of the benefits of getting comprehensive public transport information fully integrated in Google Maps is the potential to include public transport in all forms of local search. An example of this is the experiment launched over the weekend to search for hotels based upon a travel time from a location. In the example below searching for Hotels within 25 minutes of the Google Office by public transport…
The use of travel time or isocrone maps is of course not new , Mapumental really pioneered they use on line with their public transport map developed with Channel 4, the next step for Google was greater integration of this analytical capability with local search in near real time !
The areas you can easily reach from your point of interest are spotlighted on the map, and you can modify the search criteria using different maximum travel times or methods of travel, perhaps you only want to find hotels only within 10 minutes walk, the map will update automatically to show a new spotlighted area and the nearby hotels.
You can also drag the red pin to find hotels near other places you might like to visit and agin the map will automatically refresh.
6 replies on “Find a hotel using isochrones”
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This is a great idea, but the implementation looks to need a lot of work (presumably down to the quality of travel data). If I put the centre over the centre of Manchester, it tells me that in 30 minutes I can travel for a number of miles East towards Ashton…but in virtually no other direction. Now, Manchester has an awful lot of buses in an awful lot of directions, so there is clearly an issue.
It seems to be picking up some rail links, as it shows the centre of Stockport as reachable, but then it also shows the centre of Oldham: we haven’t had a railway station for several years, so unless there is a helicopter service I haven’t heard about, this is also incorrect!
There also don’t seem to be any tram routes recognised.
I hope these glitches get worked out, as it should be a useful tool.
Hi Martin,
Thanks for your comments, you are right the tool is very much dependent on access to relevant public transport data, we would love to include transport for Manchester data for example..
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Hi Ed,
there is full public transport data (open data) for Greater Manchester available at http://datagm.org.uk/ . I have never tried to use it, but I’m sure TfGM (Transport for Greater Manchester) would be happy to assist if it isn’t obvious. Can probably find you a contact there if needed, just email me.
[…] API provides the property data. I’m also grateful to Ed Parsons of Google for very kindly giving us a hat tip when they built some technology that was inspired by Mapumental. Thanks to everyone – this […]