Google's transit planner

Google's transit planner, which would be useful if it worked consistently, doesn't seem ready for prime time.

Here we have a suggested transit route from the foot of Dufferin St. to the Logan/Danforth area. The reader is told to:
- take a GO train to Union from the Exhibition station
- take another GO train to the Richmond Hill GO station
- take a York Region bus to the Unionville GO station
- take the 25D TTC Don Mills bus south from Unionville all the way to Pape station.

Total estimated time: 2 hours, 48 minutes. I had a theory that it was ignoring the TTC, but then why does it use the 25D bus?

The walking route is much more what you would expect, and comes in at about two hours.

Comments

[Ray]

It does ignore the TTC, with the exception of contracted routes that travel into York Region. GO, York Region Transit, and Hamilton Street Railway are currently the only local transit systems in this area that provide data to Google Transit.

[Robyn]

Ray beat me to it: it's because the TTC itself hasn't opened up their data (yet?). It does make for some entertaining routes. I tried it to get to a point in Markham once and it sent me on a 3.5 hour trip via Georgetown and three buses or something.

[Dave]

Yes, it's only as good as the information provided to it. If you try an area, such as BC where all the systems are in Google Transit, you'll get good results, but here in the GTA, with only GO, YRT, Guelph and Hamilton on board, you'll get crap like this. As mentioned above, all TTC 'north of Steeles' routes are in Google Transit because YRT put them there.

[Sales territory mapping]

I do agree to you Ray & Dave. I also faced the same situation while my trip. Thanks for sharing your views with us...