German
Spanish
French
Italian
Portuguese
Japanese
Korean
Russian
ChineseGoogle Transit Live in Los Angeles
The Militant Angeleno has discovered that Metro and Google have finally brought Google Transit trip planning to Los Angeles Metro riders. I can confirm, along with the Militant, that it really works. Planning a trip on Metro no longer means going through the antiquated and cumbersome Metro Advanced Trip Planner, which served its purpose but was never really elegant, friendly, or necessarily accurate. Now you can simply point your browser, or Google Maps enabled smart phone (I can confirm it works on the iPhone), to Google Transit or Google Maps, enter your start and end address (or something less specific, like “Arclight Theater”, it works!), choose the “By Public Transit Option”, adjust the time you want to leave or arrive by, and hit “Get Directions”. Google maps out your route and gives you a few different suggested routes and turn by turn directions. It’s the Google Maps functionality we’ve grown accustomed to for years now, tailored to our preferred mode of transportation, and it’s brilliant.
The Militant found a small bug when testing out a hypothetical trip from Hollywood to Hawthorne, a trip where you could theoretically get there mostly by rail but the Google Transit algorithm seemed to prefer bus routes. Another thing I noticed is that the fares aren’t listed, so if you aren’t sure of the cost you’ll have to go the Metro site first to figure out how much you should bring. I’m sure their will be some kinks to work out and some work arounds Metro riders will still have to use to get their ideal routes, but the elegance and ubiquity of the Google software cannot be denied and is miles above where we were.
This technology is great for current Metro riders, but I get really excited when I think what this means for new riders. Before, it could be quite intimidating for a newbie to try to figure out a Metro route, and the lack of a simple usable trip planning solution may have kept them from ever trying the Metro. Now, a non-rider might be searching for driving directions on Google Maps only to discover a simple and easy transit route and hop on Metro for the first time because of this. And for tourists, Google Transit will be a godsend. A simple search for “Biltmore Hotel” to “La Brea Tar Pits” (no specific addresses, just the descriptive names) spits out a 38 minute bus ride, a switch to “By Car” shows that the same trip can take up to 50 minutes in traffic. I recently made a car-free trip to San Francisco and every transit route was courtesy of Google Transit, and on the fly. I never touched a transit map or visited the Muni website. It’s great to know that visitors and locals alike will be able to do this in Los Angeles now.
Discussion
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
It does work!
The nice thing is that computer geniuses can do stuff with this data and interesting things with the map.
Just from testing, I see it wants me to take a bus at the start of a trip I usually make by *walking* a couple blocks to the subway, but otherwise it is very straightforward.
I did a test trip on my phone. My notes: It doesn’t have the muni lines (from my perspective the lack of BBB makes a huge difference). It also is hyperoptimized to minimize walking. It told me to take the 720 to Wilshire/Santa Monica and the 704 back towards SM rather than walk an extra two blocks to take the 704 directly.
It has Silver Streak, which is Foothill Transit. But I agree with you on the walking thing.
Lack of BBB limits its utility for tourists but a huge improvement for transit mobility in Los Angeles nonetheless. Thumbs up all around to MTA and Google for finally making it happen.
Needs Commuter Express, too — and Dash.
I’ll stick with metro.net for the present.
The bus vs. train thing is always a problem. I find it’s best to make your starting point the intersection you plan on catching a bus or train at, instead of an actual address. It will make you get on a bus for silly things. It’s like this in all cities on google transit.
[...] Matute at The LA Subway Blog had the most terse post about the new app, and Fred Camino at MetroRider LA the most enthusiastic: Before, it could be quite intimidating for a newbie to try to figure out a [...]
Let me pass on a bit of wisdom from the elders: The best transit planning system is your own brain.
Among one of my jobs on the late SoCalTIP was giving directions to riders via e-mail. The turnaround was slow, a few hours, but I realized by looking at a map I could produce at least two possible combinations for most transit trips.
A machine will typically give you what’s the most optimal according to its internal logic.
You should use Google Transit in conjunction with the Metro system map PDF. This way, you could test out more than one possibility for getting to your destination.
Wad:
No doubt, but in the end for me I just want a way to get to my destination. I’ve never been a fan of the PDF maps and rarely used them. I have to much going on to bother memorizing schedules or keeping a quiver of maps handy. If I end up spending an extra 15-30 minutes traveling because the machine didn’t give me the optimal directions, so be it. The same thing would happen to me when I drove, invariably Google Maps would lead me on a bit of a goose chase, but I’m not the type who really enjoys pouring over a Thomas Guide.
Google Transit in LA is going to make my personal world a much better place, since I have an iPhone I have the transit software in my pocket (the Metro Trip planner hardly worked on the phone) and hopefully never be lost again. I love living in the future.
The best thing about this is that it puts transit within easy reach of someone looking for driving directions. When someone used Metro’s trip planner, they most likely were only considering transit. Now when you’re looking for driving directions, bus and rail routes are a click away.
One addition I would make is a Park & Ride mode where it searches for a park and ride facilities first, then takes you on bus or rail from there.
Fred, those PDFs you never look at, plus the analytic capabilities of your mind, are far better than the automatic trip generation done by Google Transit or any other machine.
The machine is bound by its programmers’ parameters; your mind isn’t.
The maps help you become a smarter rider because once you realize there are at least two possible combinations for every trip, you become more familiar with the system. You’ll get to locations faster, and you won’t resign yourself to unreliable lines.
If it makes you feel any better, I had to learn this stuff through trial-and-error and using only paper media. Now that an electronic solution is here, I find that it hasn’t helped me. And I caution others not to rely solely on automated routing, as it doesn’t give out the best information and worse, it stultifies the mind. What do you do when you see the bus you need just leave your stop? Wait for the next bus, or try your luck with another route? Most people do the former, while if the second option is available, they’ve saved themselves some time.
Wad:
My point is, I’m relatively “hardcore” when it comes to public transit (hardcore in that most normal folks don’t think to start a transit blog), and looking at PDF maps and using my brain is most of the time not want I want to do. Like most people, I want things to be as easy as possible. This might not reflect well on my person, but it’s truth.
This being said, if someone who is relatively “hardcore” about public transit doesn’t really want to look at PDF maps and figure out the best route, I would imagine a more casual or even neophyte rider would be even more unlikely to want to download PDF maps and coordinate with Google Transit to plan their trip. What’s great about Google Transit, to me at least, is the ease of use. It might not be the “best” method for trip planning, but it’s certainly the easiest and most transparent.
When you’re on the go and want to find a route on your cell phone, is it better to lug around schedules or fire up Google Transit?
[...] Excited About Google Transit… (Metro Rider, Subway Blog, Militant Angeleno, [...]
Actually, I would rather use the Metro Trip Planner on my cell phone (and have). The Google interface is more visually oriented but slower and, as noted, can lead you off in odd directions. (This despite the fact that I have an iPhone.)
But if I had my laptop and was doing a transit trip to maximize time and distance on transit (as opposed to actually getting somewhere) I would use it. Indeed, just this Saturday I spent a day in San Diego with a couple of friends as we rode through the region on some of the routes that I hadn’t ridden – Chula Vista Transit, the Sprinter, the Super Loop, etc. To connect the dots my friend brought his laptop and pack of schedules and we plotted the best way to get between those destinations. I keep a set of Metro schedules on my laptop for those occasional instances.
Trick question. The correct answer is none of the above.
This is L.A. Here, the rider will get to the stop right at the moment the bus leaves. This now becomes Metro’s/society’s fault and the next bus ride is spent tweeting 140-character snivelgasms to the world. Then rider gets home/to an Internet cafe and posts a complete missive on how life sucks and it’s all Metro’s fault.
More than a thousand words go into the missive that follows all “noob rides the bus” blog canon: the ride that took 7 1/2 hours to go 5 blocks; the menacing demeanor of the affirmative action hire bus driver; and the sandwiching in between the aromatic homeless guy carrying on a conversation with five of his other personalities and the apathetic iPod-listening 16-year-old girl who can’t keep her three ADHD-afflicted children under control.
Nobody really cares, except for the message from Kymberleigh Richards saying it isn’t Metro’s fault and the rider should get on with his/her/its life. Then same rider is off to buy a car, never to set foot on transit again, only to be surprised that there is traffic in L.A., and the electronic communiques “noob drives in L.A. for the first time every day” doggerel.
Over time, Google will ask Metro to remove its information from the maps because it needs the bandwidth for something else after noticing a trend of prolonged apathy except for the trickle of activity from the transit blogs and Militant Angeleno.
So when you’re on the go and want to find a route on your cell phone, does it matter?
Damn, that is some hardcore cynicism and sometimes you just have to stop and give praise where praise is due. Good show, Wad, good show. I’m saving that one in a .txt file.
Ha! Nice comment, wad. Fun to read, but your conclusion that Google will ask Metro to remove the info is highly unlikely.
Spokker, to really answer your question: firing up google transit on the iphone is the best option. I have an iphone with its maps application, which integrates google-transit extremely well. I’m in total agreement with Fred on this. Being able to pull out your cell phone, tap probably 5-10 keys, and find out when the next bus is supposed to arrive at your stop, OR re-plan your trip on the fly on another bus that stops nearby, all while only taking probably under a minute to use Google transit to do so, is a real and significant improvement.
It’s way better than having to boot up your laptop, wait while it starts up, then open a multitude of (hopefully) previously downloaded pdf’s, OR hope you have wi-fi or else plug in the 3G adapter to get that multitude of pdfs online, OR rustle through your backpack for a crumpled timetable or map, OR rely on inadequate signage.
The main reason google transit is great is the reason you already pointed out: ease of use for people who already use google to get directions all over the world. Now out-of-towners won’t have to find the mta website, figure out how to use the clunky trip-planner interface, and get confused and frustrated. Just spend 30 seconds using the google transit interface they are already used to.
Having this available on the iphone is a big bonus, though.
[...] from the grave. MRLA leading man Fred Camino, a web designer who is as tech-savvy as they come, is positively gooey for G-Trans: It’s the Google Maps functionality we’ve grown accustomed to for years now, tailored to our [...]
[...] appearing on Google Transit has MetroReaders and the transitsphere hot and bothered — about 80 percent former, 20 percent latter. Well, now that Metro has discovered technology [...]
My biggest problem with Google Transit is not that it doesn’t OFFER alternatives, but that it makes it difficult to FIND alternatives. First of all, the maps don’t show rail or bus lines. Second, you can’t pull your start point, or a point on your path, to find a new route, as you can for car travel. So you’re staring at a street map that tells you nothing useful except for whatever Google has picked for you.
There are no opportunities for work-arounds. For instance, if you want to go downtown from the westside, but you see on Sigalert that the 10 is jammed, you’re not going to want to take a bus that’s going to get stuck on the 10. there’s no way to tell google, or to coax it, to take another route that excludes the 10.
Hopefully they’re working on upgrades for the system. I hope they’re talking to lots of transit riders in the process, not engineering from the top down.
âûâîç ñòðîèòåëüíîãî ìóñîðà…
âûâîç ñòðîèòåëüíîãî ìóñîðà…