Google Maps

[Paul Hayton]

The Dunedin Public Libraries runs a Bookbus service. I'm starting to play with Google Maps to share the various bus routes for each day of the week. Keep you posted.


View DPL Network Map

[Sean Murgatroyd]

Sounds interesting Paul. Are you thinking of putting on any kind of search at the front end of that? Eg put in your address, get the date and time of your nearest stop. Admittedly this could be done visually but still... would be kinda neat.

[Paul Hayton]

Hi Sean,

Hope the day is going well for you..

To start with no, my plan is to create 5-7 maps each covering a days worth of bookbus routes. Users should be able to then overlay as many of these maps as they wish onto one master map. As mentioned I want to integrate flickr images of the stops with the maps. I have had some success with this so far but to do it well means heading into API territory which I have not looked seriously into - yet.

I'll ponder your idea some more - keep in touch.

Best

P.

[Sean Murgatroyd]

Yep it's an interesting and good initiative. I'm not sure how my concept would be developed although one could group hits by suburb - one would think once you've placed the markers regrouping them wouldn't be too difficult? Maybe rather than 5 maps make one big one with tags so that the search function calls up the appropriate sets depending on what's being looked for?

Anyhoo it's definitely a cool one, let me know how you get on.

[Paul Hayton]

Hi Sean

I've spent some time creating maps covering each day our bookbus is on the road.

I'm working now on adding flickr to the mix which will take a bit longer as I need to get images from each stop and we have over 50 of them spread over six days worth of timetables.

Before that I will embed via inline html coding the maps for each day of the week in to our website.

A feature I like is that the user can seek the fastest route from where they are to the bookbus stop they nominate.

Google Maps does the grunt work and plots a nice visual map with written directions how to get there (see attached file).

Cheers

P.

[Paul Hayton]

I've completed the six maps and have embedded them into a web page at the DPL site - any feedback is welcome.