The Google Transit Earth Day challenge

Posted by Tom Sly, New Business Development Manager, Google Transit

I recently attended a conference for technical staff in the public transportation industry. I told them about the great progress Google Transit has been able to make in the past year:

• integrating transit information directly into Google Maps by making stations and stops visible and clickable
• promoting transit as an alternative each time we show driving directions in an area where we have transit data
• expanding coverage from nine agencies in the U.S. to more than 30 agencies spanning three continents

But, of course, we don't do this on our own: we rely on transit agencies to share their data with us so that everyone — residents, tourists, and lifetime riders — can benefit from having the information at their fingertips. Taking public transport is a great option for people to reduce their impact on global warming, so I issued a challenge to those at the conference: get your agency up and running on Google Maps in time for April 22, 2008 — better known as Earth Day.

We've already had several agencies get in touch with us, but with over 200 agencies in the U.S. alone, we still have a lot of ground to cover. So now I'd like to extend this challenge to everyone: if your local agency isn't already participating, get in touch with them and let them know that you'd like to see their information on Google Maps.