Let’s face it: public transportation isn’t a sexy topic, and it’s not really one of the fields in which Google specializes. But the subject does seem rather recession-appropriate, and the search giant has made a nice gesture by updating its Google Transit feature on Google Maps.
In a post on the LatLong Blog, Raphael Leiteritz wrote, “Recently we launched full schedules for Transit . . . in Calgary, Hamilton, Edmonton, and York Region in Canada; East Midlands (UK); Houston (TX); 21 agencies in the state of Virginia, as well as a substantial data set in China, connecting all provinces with 3100 train lines, covering about 2700 stations and all major cities.”
Google Transit
Plus, “We’re adding to the 50+ cities we launched at the beginning of this year. New cities include: Adelaide, Atlanta, Bonn, Calgary, Davis, California, Hamilton, Canada, Pilsen, Sacramento, Torino, Toronto York region, and we’ve launched updates for Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria.”
This represents an obvious win for people who live in the listed areas and plan their trips in advance. Folks who are visiting (or are just more spur-of-the-moment types) are also in luck since all of the information should be accessible by mobile devices.
Here’s hoping not too many people need the transit data, though. Car manufacturers, at least, would certainly be happier to see everyone using plain old Google Maps.
