The Hungarian State Railways schedule is finally part of Google Maps
According to 24.hu, Google Maps has been helping lots of tourists and locals in a hurry, and basically anyone who wants to orient his/herself, for years. The application helps you on the internet or on your smart phone with vocal navigation, tons of information, and useful transport data.
Out of these, probably the incorporation of schedules was the best idea, because Google proposes a route paying respect to the given transport conditions and the possibly late runs, which helps you arrive on time at your destination. Even though train lines are not really affected by traffic jams, it is good news that we can check train schedules on Google Maps from now on.
The 90 railway lines and more than 1200 inland railway stations run by MÁV (Hungarian State Railways), MÁV-START and GYSEV are now part of the system. Ilona Dávid, the president-executive manager of MÁV Inc., can be rightfully proud of the development, because, as she put it, “railway lines are the first to be part of Google Maps out of all the Hungarian point-to-point and distance public transport service providers. We are not the first in Europe, but still among the foregoers with this development, after the French, the German and the Austrian corporations.”
For rural Google Maps users this means that after you type in the destination (let it be mobile app or online surface) you can choose the train as the form of transportation, after which the application proposes a step by step route for you and calculates the duration of your travel, as well.
Local public transport and MÁV data will set you on your way with joined forces from now on, meaning that, for instance, Budapest residents can get from home to the railway station with the help of public transport information, from where they can visit any part of Hungary with the help of the MÁV schedule. In fact, if you don’t mind longer rides, you can even go abroad with solely trains.
MÁV won’t stop here, they are planning on further technological developments. One of their plans is to make their schedule data base – as a general transit feed specification (GTFS) – available for everyone free of charge on the www.mavcsoport.hu website. With the open platform and data base updated every night – after registration – any application developer can get the chance to develop better and better ideas.
Photos: MTI, www.24.hu
Copy editor: bm
Source: http://24.hu/