COTA riders get help from Google in planning trips

There was great new yesterday in the Columbus Dispatch:

Riders can go to the COTA Web site, www.cota.com, and punch in the starting and ending points of their trip, along with the date and time the trip will be made. Google Transit processes the information and tells riders where and when to meet the bus that will take them where they want to go.

Actually, I’m not sure why it was necessary to identify one of the people they interview as homeless, but that’s a totally different topic. I will say that I tried it out, and was generally impressed. It gave me the general route I sometimes take. The one thing I would say is that it appears COTA has given Google only the major pick up spots for each bus. So while there’s one just a minute away from where I live, Google would have me walk to a stop seven minutes away. Similary, Google tries to guess the route the bus will take, by using those major stops. That means it didn’t even show the circuitous route of the bus I take that means it’s just a minute away. This seems to be more an issue with COTA than anything, and isn’t a major one. It is something to keep in mind when using it, though.

(Via the Columbus Dispatch.)

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