Google Transit trip planning in Europe

Posted by Christoph Oehler, Product Manager

We are very happy to announce the launch of Google Transit trip planner in Europe. For quite some time, Google Maps has featured transit stop icons with helpful information like lines serving a station and next departures for many cities. But now you can plan your entire journey using public transportation! So far we have information for the following places and transport companies:

- Traveline South East, UK
- SBB, Switzerland (train, ferries and long distance bus coverage)
- VBZ, Zurich, Switzerland
- Turin, Italy
- Florence, Italy

Try it yourself: type your start and end address in the "get directions" boxes. The default results are driving directions, but in the areas that we have transit routing coverage, you can simply click on the "Take Public Transit" link.

We believe this is an important step in encouraging people to use public transit. We're hoping folks will decide to leave the car at home if they can easily discover a transit stop next to a business as they're searching for it, or if they realise it's easy to take a train as they plot their journey from point A to point B. We're always looking to improve our coverage and work with more partners -- we'll keep you posted as more places and transport companies are added.