Transport: Route Planner

With its immediate and intimate knowledge of the whereabouts of and intended or possible routes for every localnet vehicle, the localnet system is well placed to help you make the right choice about how to get you and/or your “stuff” from and to anywhere, any time.

This section discusses:

Existing Provision

What

Sometimes we must go to a specific location for something. If you want to kiss the Blarney stone then you have to go to the Blarney Stone. It will not come to you.

In other cases, the choice is less clear. You might be going into town in order to get a key cut. In this case, it clearly makes more sense for the master key to travel to the locksmiths without out and for it and the new one to travel back to you. However, unless you know the cost and time it will take to do this, there's a great temptation to just jump in the car, drive five miles to town, get it cut and drive back again.

A number of websites offer route planning tools that are supposed to help you plan your journey using public transport. Others help you choose a courier or postal service. However, there is nothing that really helps you to decide objectively between the “mountain comes to Mohammed” or “Mohammed goes to the mountain” options.

How

Recent government initiatives in the UK have been spectacularly disappointing. One website is supposed to let you see how to take a journey by public transport. It is a nightmare to use and the results it provides are laughable. You could probably drive to most places in less time than it takes you to enter your details, navigate the answers and come to the conclusion that you’re going to have to drive anyway.

Systems with national reach tend to use highly automated rules as they cannot afford to embed specific local knowledge.

Volume and Frequency

If we are trying to encourage families to manage with fewer cars, especially in urban areas, we need to help them find the best way to satisfy their needs - and try to ensure that the best way is the most environmentally friendly and most convenient - hence is chosen more often than not.

Financial Model

A variety of models are used today:

Providers

Existing websites leave a lot to be desired and do not really address this problem in its entirety.

Trends

Mapping and route planning services are rapidly becoming ubiquitous but few have the depth to serve local communities.

With Localnet

What

While those commuting to work or school on a regular basis will find out the optimum time and route then stick to it, there is still the question of ad hoc journeys. It needs to be trivial to find out how best to achieve a variety of goals - whether that entails you, the objects involved and/or someone else travelling.

We need to identify and encourage the optimum strategy for achieving the bulk of tasks facing residents. The exact definition of “optimum” may be subjective - but if the relative costs and merits of the alternative options are shown, then at least an informed decision can be made and the net impact should be positive.

How

Each localnet's database will be designed to gradually accumulate details of:

With an intimate and probably hand-crafted set of local routes, footpaths, cycle ways and traffic patterns, the system should be able to show, on demand, the potential options open to someone trying to achieve any given task. For example, “I need to get another key cut” could show:

Volume and Frequency

If common tasks and local destinations and businesses are properly entered and organised, it should be possible to make the service easy enough to use and valuable enough that people look at it as a matter of course before deciding how to achieve their goals for the day.

Financial Model

As this service will end up steering people towards public transport, it should probably be at least partially funded from ticket sales or deliver charges that are made through it.

Providers

With a fairly small local area to cover, each localnet route planner (really “task optimiser”) should be under the close control of local staff who can input and maintain accurate information that is relevant to their community.

Evolution

It will take time to build the full range of tasks and options for each but as with most of these services, the Pareto Principle applies. The 20% of tasks that are done most often will represent about 80% of the requests. The others can be mopped up as time allows.

 

Comparison

The table below assesses the impact of localnet on this service on a scale of -5 to +5 (details here)

  Existing services As part of localnet Score
Scope Poorly provided at present. The localnet itself makes a huge difference to the number of options open and the desirability of many. +2
Frequency Too cumbersome to use and poor results holding back adoption. Local knowledge ensures fast and accurate answers. +2
Security Not applicable. Not applicable. 0
Convenience Need to log in, enter location etc. System knows who you are and where you are as well as local info. +2
Cost Negligible. Should be zero to end user. 0
Quality Very variable at present. Limited geographical scope allows fine tuning of algorithms to give better results in local area only. +2
Carbon Footprint Need to be usable and give sensible recommendations before they encourage people to make “right” choices. Showing trade-offs between time, money, health and environmental impact lets user take informed decision. +2
Time Cumbersome user interfaces. Fine-tuned, simple interface with local knowledge already baked in. +1
Resources Used Not applicable. Not applicable. 0
Reuse & Recycling Not applicable. Not applicable. 0
Landfill Waste Not applicable. Not applicable. 0
Other Differentiators Valuable means of collecting information to help improve localnet services. +1

Services