Background & History

Google Transit, a classic public transportation route planner, is an “inter-modal journey planner typically accessed via the web that provides information about available public transport services”.

The input is a starting point and a destination by public users. The output is a set of route options between the two on public transit services (in Google Transit’s case, walks and cycling routes are also included), in the order of users’ preferences such as price, time, availability, etc.. Time and cost of certain transportation under certain circumstances, for example, arrival or departure time and estimated waiting time for buses are all included. The algorithm of Google Transit is the way it finds the most appropriate routes according to your preferences and display them in an order. This process involves the users’ activities of inputting information, but more importantly, it is an automatic computer language based on the existing and constantly updated data.