Google Maps gain Transit layer for selected cities (Updated)

Stephen Withers
Friday, 16 January 2009 07:57

Business IT - Networking

Google has added a Transit (public transport) layer to more than 50 cities in various countries. But don't get too excited - it's just a map layer and does not include route and timetable information.

Google has an existing product called Google Transit, which covers around 90 transit systems in US cities plus a smattering in Canada, Australia (Adelaide Metro and Transperth), South America (Brazil) and Europe (including Traveline Southeast in the UK).

Google Transit provides step-by-step directions for travelling between two addresses by public transport.

The Transit Layer on Google Maps is intended to identify public transport facilities near a particular location.

"Think of a virtual metro map on top of Google Maps - even when we don't have itinerary planning available, we want you to be able to see public transit options that are available," said product manager Raphael Leiteritz.

"Our goal is to be able to offer transit information as an alternative to driving directions wherever possible."

The cities covered by the new Transit layer are (take a breath!): Belo Horizonte, Berlin, Bordeaux, Brasilia, Cairo, Capetown, Caracas, Chicago, Copenhagen, Dallas, Dortmund, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Ekaterinburg, Essen, Frankfurt, Genoa, Guadalajara, Hamburg, Helsinki, Johannesburg, Kazan, Köln, Lille, Lisbon, London, Lyon, Madrid, Marseille, Medellin, Mexico City, Melbourne, Monterrey, Montreal, Munich, Naples, Nizhniy Novgorod, Oslo, Paris, Perth, Portland, Porto, Porto Alegre, Prague, Pretoria, Recife, Rennes, Rio de Janeiro, Samara, San Francisco, Santiago, Sao Paulo, Seattle, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Tunis, Vienna, Warsaw.

Coverage in Melbourne appears patchy in that clicking on a tram stop shows the routes that it serves, but doing the same on a railway station provides no additional information such as the line it is on. And we could find no sign of bus routes.

But then much the same con be said for London: the Underground network is shown with the names of the lines serving each station, but clicking on a regular station does little more than tell you "yes, that's a station." Bus routes are not shown, and bus stops only appear at the highest levels of magnification.

When you do click on a London bus stop, you're sometimes presented with the route number, destination, and upcoming departure times. And sometimes all you see is a description of the location.

The Transit layer is still a work in progress, but it's no less welcome for that.

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