Monday, June 26th, 2006
London Tube Route Finder
David Tran has spent the past couple of months producing a route finder for the London Tube. The site showcases several Ajax features:
- Autocomplete suggestions as you type in the station names (though it’s apparently capped to 3 suggestions).
- A very web 2.0 feature - vote on each suggested route with a :-) or :-(.
- Google Maps popup to show where the station is.
- And of course, no page refresh - route info updates via web remoting.
Aptly enough, it’s Rails that lies under the covers.
David’s looking for feedback on this project.
2.3 rating from 33 votes
With the exception of the set-and-forget up or down vote, none of this is improved with the use of Ajax. Also, I hope you don’t plan on printing the route…
The new route thing should allow you to pick a starting point, be presented with a list of available stations that you can select from, and you would just have to click the station name, which would be added to the route. You shouldn’t have to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the route to add it.
here’s some feedback : employ a designer, great idea, but it offends my eyes ;)
Hi Matthew
You can click on the “change” link next to the starting and end stations in the route designer, which will bring up the autocomplete fields for the station names. There is no need to recall them from memory. Also, if the route you enter is a tube route, the intermediate stations will fill in automatically.
Hi Davros
Can’t afford a web designer on my current pay. I can’t do anything about the colours of the tube lines, as they are set by TFL :-)
Check out
http://thecloseststation.com/london.html
..another Ajax driven route finder for the tube. This one has a number of well known places in its database, too, and you can add yourself so people can find you. I use it quite often.
I wish more “web 2.0″ applications were as useful as ones like this — and that they were more local! If there was a service like this for, say, the bus service in my city, I wouldn’t care what it looked like! I think it’s a neat app.
Uhhmm.. is the css-file missing?
I think it’s a great idea, but the design could be a bit better.
Hi all
Taking on board the feedback, I have given the site a facelift, added a route designer, and also integrated the tube map path plotting. Enjoy.
David
Will you intergrate videos as well?