Google has provided its Google Maps service with comprehensive UK public transport data.
Up to now, we in the UK using the Google Maps app on phone and desktop have only been able to benefit from limited public transport information in certain parts of the UK.
That’s now changed in dramatic fashion. In what is one of the biggest implementations of public transport data Google has ever introduced, Google Maps now covers every train, bus, tram and ferry across England, Scotland, and Wales.
Northern Ireland will apparently follow at some point in the future.
This massive boost to Google Maps usability in the UK has been enabled by incorporating data from Traveline, an organisation that compiles public transport data for Britain from a network of cooperative local authorities and transport organisations.
This has brought the number of local public transport routes in Google Maps up to 17,000, with 34,000 stopping points and stations (including ferry ports).
Google Maps uses this data intelligently to link together multiple public transport methods, taking into account the necessary walking times in between stations. It can make recommendations based on the number of changes and future departures, and can also calculate the distances between stations.
We’ve seen similarly advanced mobile UK public transport implementation to this in Nokia’s HERE Transit, but of course Google’s implementation will be of benefit to far more people thanks to its availability on iOS and Android.
You can benefit from this new public transport data by booting up Google Maps on either of the aforementioned platforms, as well as by heading to Google Maps on your web browser.
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Via: The Guardian