Google Maps Out a New Way to Plan British Train Travel

LONDON, January 30, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Google and thetrainline.com come together to help customers plan train travel across Britain

Travelling across Britain by train just became easier, with the launch of information and timetables for mainland Britain on Google Maps, the most popular online mapping site in the world, courtesy of thetrainline.com.

As of today, train travellers can search for journeys across the country at maps.google.co.uk with more than 2,500 stations and 170,000 trips nationwide at their fingertips, in addition 8,000 bus stops and over 250 tube stations. The website also gives users full information on walking directions and some bus timetables for connections, as well as the opportunity to click through to leading online train ticketing website thetrainline.com, to search for and book cheap tickets for their journey.

So for anyone who has ever wondered how quickly they can get from a street in Reading to a hotel in Llandudno, or how many changes they'd have to make on the London to Edinburgh route, the website gives users full information. This includes walking directions and bus timetables for connections, as well as the opportunity to click through to leading online train ticketing website thetrainline.com, to search for and book cheap train tickets for their journey.

Searching for travel information across Greater London was already possible but now thanks to the new updates, internet and mobile users have access to timetables and train information for routes across the whole country.

The partnership expands Google's popular mapping and directions tool and supports thetrainline.com's goal of making rail journey planning easy and highlighting the convenience and cost benefits to people of travelling by train.

Richard Rowson, Product Development Director at thetrainline.com said: "We're delighted to be providing train travel information through Google Maps for the first time. We want to make sure that consumers are always able to consider rail options when making a journey and this innovation will help train travellers nationwide to do that by planning their route more easily. This is a fantastic partnership and demonstrates what two market leading brands working together can achieve."

Ed Parsons, Google UK's geospatial technologist, said: "Google Maps seeks to provide a wide range of relevant local information, and public transport station and schedule information is definitely a part of that. It is great to be able to partner with companies like thetrainline.com and have their schedule information available in Google Maps for the whole of Britain. This means we can reach and help a larger number of people with useful national rail train information."

Google Maps is available in over 50 languages, so with London set to be a very popular destination this coming summer, tourists will also be able to combine walking with transit directions on Google Maps for mobile to help find their way around the country.

Christopher Rodrigues, VisitBritain Chairman said: "We want to encourage visitors to explore the whole of Britain. With the Olympics less than 200 days away Google's new initiative is exciting news. Millions of visitors plan their itinerary using Google maps and this additional information will act as a catalyst and inspire them to discover all that is wonderful about our great country."

More about how it works

To access public transport information from a desktop, users should visit maps.google.co.uk, click "Get Directions", and enter origin and destination locations. Then click the icon depicting a train to obtain public transport directions and easily viewable train routes on the map. Users can also tap into GPS on a mobile device and get directions from their current location to any given destination in Britain.

Customers will be given the best route by rail and full details including departure and arrival times, journey duration and which train company is operating the service. These details are also displayed on the map above the departure location, where the user can click through to thetrainline.com homepage to search for and book cheap tickets for their journey.

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Google Maps offers powerful, user-friendly mapping technology and local business information in the context of satellite imagery, street level imagery, and user-contributed content. Google Maps is the most popular online mapping site in the world and can be accessed at maps.google.co.uk

Some fun facts about Google Maps:

• Public transport public route data covers 170,000 train journeys and over 2,500 stations across Great Britain
• Transit data is available in more than 440 regions in the world
• Transit data is available in more than 50 countries in the world
• #1 mapping site in the world.
• Provides detailed street maps in over 65 countries
• Millions of Google Maps users in the UK every week

About thetrainline.com

thetrainline.com is the leading UK rail ticket retailer and rail ticket information provider, offering fast and easy access to timetables, fares, reservations and tickets through its Internet site and contact centre operations in the UK train travel sector. In addition to its own website, http://www.thetrainline.com, it operates retail websites for 15 Train Operating Companies who sell rail tickets online, as well as providing a rail business travel service direct to a number of blue chip corporations and travel agents.

thetrainline.com welcome opportunities to work with like-minded companies that support thetrainline.com's mission to help customers plan their journeys and save money on rail tickets and other services. Please contact Omid Golshan, Partnerships Director at thetrainline.com for details.