For people who commute every day to work or to wherever their destination is, you’ve probably experienced times when you have to combine different modes of transportation, from buses to trains to bicycles to ridesharing services (hopefully not all of these on one occasion). If you’re using Google Maps to guide you in your transit, we have good news for you. Soon they’ll be rolling out Mixed Modes in the transit directions “so you can travel that first or last mile with ease.”
Adding the ridesharing and cycling options along with the usual transit directions that you get will be really helpful for those that have to get from one place to another through various means. To see the new options, just type on your destination in the search box then tap the Directions button and go to the Transit tab. When you scroll down, you’ll see the Mixed Modes section which can give you options if you want to combine different transportation modes.
Even better, your entire travel time and ETA will have those other options built-in so you don’t need to do some math on your own. For the ridesharing options, you can choose your preferred provider and other ride options like pool or economy will also be included. It will, of course, tell you how much the ride will cost, how long you have to wait for your ride, whether or not there’s heavy traffic build-up along the way, and also what’s the departure time of the bus or train you’re trying to catch after that ride.
As for the biking routes, it will also include the other information a cyclist may need to get to their next leg of the commute. As mentioned earlier, all of that information is factored into your travel time so you can make sure that biking to your next destination will make travel time faster and maybe even more convenient.
The Mixed Mode in the transit options will start rolling out on Google Maps in the next few days and weeks. It will be available for both iOS and Android and will roll out initially in 30 countries and with more territories coming soon.
