What's all this buzz about TriMet's new trip tool, the Portland Regional Trip Planner? Unlike existing tools, the new Trip Planner lets you to plan trips combining transit, bike and walking in a single itinerary.
With this tool, you can specify your preferences for a bike ride. For example, you can use the tool to find the safest or flattest route from your house to the nearest bus or MAX stop. Or, let's say you want to bike or ride transit to the nearest ZipCar location, the tool can help with that too.
Other features that make the tool unique:
- It allows for future inclusion of other transit systems, such as C-TRAN and SMART.
- The tool uses OpenStreetMap, a Wikipedia-like map, so bike routes and walking paths are up-to-date and reflect closure and construction information.
- It includes car-sharing locations, so you can easily plan transit or bike trips to ZipCars.
- It's the first open-source trip planner to combine transit, biking and walking produced by a U.S. transit agency.
- It offers bike routing based on suitability, which is a highly requested feature that other mapping tools don't offer.
This project was funded by a grant from Metro, and was developed by TriMet in partnership with OpenPlans and a team of developers from around the world.
Try the new tool and have fun using it to bike, walk and ride transit around town (by the way, using these modes is good for your wallet and the planet). Check out the tool and use it to plan your next adventure by going to http://rtp.trimet.org/
The tool is currently a test version. TriMet would like your feedback as you use the tool. Was your itinerary accurate? Was it easy to use? What could work better? Please send your feedback to [email protected].