The Map App I Want

[mik3cap]

I don't know if people really care about this sort of thing as much as I do... but as a New Yorker (and still a relatively new one, that may factor in) I find that I need to plan my trips around the city. Travel time on public transportation is an important variable to consider, as are schedules for said transportation options.

The thing is, even though applications like Google Maps allow you to make multiple "stops" on a trip, you still can't figure in the time you plan to spend at any particular stop. So for examples, let's say I'm going to run errands in Manhattan for a bit, then meet a friend for dinner, then need to hit the pet store in my neighborhood to get litter for my cat.

I want to be able to start my journey at a particular time and hit location A to make my first errand. I figure running that errand will take me 30 minutes - so I should be able to enter in that first stop, then add +30 to the arrival time to figure out when my start time is for the next leg of the journey, and that should then figure out the next best transportation option to location B based on the schedules. This feature of "added time" alone would make my life a bit easier. But let's also say that I'm scheduled to meet my friend at 5:00p.m. for dinner; wouldn't it be impressive for the application to figure out my current trajectory, and determine whether or not I'm going to be late, and then suggest sending a text message to my friend notifying them about my current position and revised ETA?

This too would be awesome.

Lastly, this application would also be alerting me when I'm spending too much time in one place - if I lose track of time while running an errand, it would be great to be reminded of when I need to catch the next transportation option. Or even whether or not it's still possible for me to make it home in time to get to the pet store before it closes; if I couldn't do that within the current calculations of time, maybe I'll go to a pet store in my current area that's still open instead.

All of this is within easy reach technologically. I want it.

Comments

[kaetaur13.livejournal.com]

sounds cool to me I could use it all the time. I am trippin through Boston everyday and if I could also time my trips and get an average of all of those times with a chart of which days for some trips are faster it slower that would rule.