What hardware / software does it all?

oldwestern · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 07, 2005 Posts: 8

I got to use the new Nuvi 300 in ernest today and discovered that I wanted it to work in ways I had not considered before buying it.

I wanted to:-
- follow bus routes;
- know where underground stations were;
- incorporate a number of way points (via options)

I was impressed by London Transports 'Journey Planner' which could plan a journey from postcode to postcode showing which route to walk, what buses / tubes / rail connect and offering a selection of compared 'best journey times' around the chosen start time.

OK, I don't expect a gps to know about time tables - but... can any combination of gps hardware / software offer bus routes and multiple waypoints?

Any ideas?

Hal.

lbendlin · Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2007 7:25 pm Post subject:

no, not yet. There are some maps that have metro/tube stations but as far as I know they don't have intelligence about the tube network between these stations.

Nice business idea.
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oldwestern · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 07, 2005 Posts: 8

FWIW-
The problem arose when I wanted to take my daughter (studying Occupationa Therapy) by over the walk/bus route she will need to take from her Uni lodgings to the hospital placement she has to work at this month. The Nuvi gave vastly different car routes to the bus, and the London Transport system only gave partial routes for the various buses she would need to use.

We ended-up making a stab at a dry run to see roughly how long it would take and what land marked she would need to look-out for - but it was not ideal.

I'll need to go through a similar process later in the year for different hospitals.

Such a mapping system, especially if linked to Internet applications able to generate time-table/route/fare options, would make, palm-top GPS systems so much more worthwhile - In fact I'd say it could revolutionise the viability of Public Transport.

I don't use P.T. as a rule because:-
a) I live in a rural area and it's unreliable, and
b) when I do go to town, finding what bus pr underground train goes where, and when, is a nightmare, so I take the car - but I'd prefer to use P.T.

I'd invest in a palm system that could give me that up-to-date info in a 'New York minute'. I can imagine there must be thousands of people who would make greater use of public transport of only it could be made more 'user-friedly'. And what a boon such a system would be to the international holiday maker, again like my daughter, who travled round Europe last year on - Public Transport - but had to pre-plan all her journeys months i9n advance. It would have enabled them to do so much more on the spur of the moment!

Ah well, we can all dream, I just hope this might give a developer the impetus take GPS software to a new level - sooner rather than later!

Hal.

theripper · Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 4:09 pm Post subject:

Hi Oldwestern
There is a free program that works on PocketPC and windows mobile phone called Metro which does what you want for London and about 250 other cities worldwide
go here http://nanika.net/Metro/
I have used it in London and it seems to work quite well
regards
theripper

oldwestern · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 07, 2005 Posts: 8

Thanks for the info. I gave the web version a brief trial but unfortunatly I didn't have the specific addresses. On the other hand - it tested the part name function. It did provide some resonable suggestions from the limited data I entered but on the whole I found it fairly demanding. That said, London Transport's Journey Planner (LTJP) didn't offer anything much better.

What would be usefull is a quick scrolling map so that I could quickly locate the general area and then drill down to a specific pin-point location (maybe offering ability to convert to a postcode?).

LTJP did offer a map but it only offered a vague citymap outline at small scale and at the next bigger magnification, which included area names and some street names, the rendering slowed dramaticly making it very cumbersome to find the address location - in fact I gave up.

Hal,

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