Redmond, Washington — Software maker Microsoft’s rising search engine, Bing Maps has unleashed another nice feature recently, added public transportation guidance to its directions options, with directions available initially on routes to 11 major metropolitan cities in North America.
For every one of you Eco-friendly public transportation users out there, it is an excellent first step for Bing, though there is certainly a lot of work left to do to catch up to Google Maps — which covers more than twice that many in California alone and a total of 446 cities around the globe.
Nevertheless, mobile users have unique information needs. They ask for information at the time they are at a distant place other than their desk or laptop. This shift is driving innovation in the area of maps that could become an important differentiator between search services of the future as the world starts to head in a truly mobile direction.
Apparently, as bing getting some grip in search arena as of late, there should be some more attention paid to the efforts to invigorate their maps offerings. So now, you can continue taking the bus, the subway or whatever local rail you want, without risking of getting in the middle of nowhere, because you can turn to Bing Maps and establish the best route in advance.
According to the Bing Community blog:
Commuters rejoice! “Bing Maps has added transit routing to its directions options. So, for those of you who like to take the bus, subway, or local rail you now can turn to Bing Maps,” Brian Hendricks, an associate product manager for Bing Maps, said in a blog post yesterday.
This newly released feature is in fact a very essential one, as the interest in public transportation is continuously increasing, and the networks are developing to accommodate more and more people. There are more than 10.7 billion public transit passengers per year in the US alone. The areas covered in this initial release of Bing Maps transit directions, Bing Maps will cover 11 cities: Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Jersey, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington DC, and Vancouver.
Here is a screenshot of the new service:
Bing Maps now can supply directions including public transportation, not just walking and driving. (Credit: Microsoft)
As it visible on the screenshot above, every route option features transit information on the side, so that users could easily compare route options depending on what transit they know and which one they prefer. And not only that, Bing delivers transit options for bus, subway, local rail and light rail and information about the transit routing can be found on Bing’s AJAX site.
The official blog post states that the update was not just about transit routes, besides the transit novelties, Bing maps has also made major improvements on business details and information about landmarks. Moreover, you also can open movie house detail pages and see movie listings added to the Nearby panel, besides many details on hours of operation on these listings.
The latest release helps the service compete the attribute available already in Google Maps, Bing Maps’ chief rival. So while this is a good direction for bing to head in, and with mobile gadgets growing in significance and capability, online maps are appropriately essential for navigating while en route, not just in advance.
Still, the best way of understanding why Bing is excited about the new services, unless you are paying attention to the details and simply looking for something that can be so elusive in the Internet age, is to explore Bing Maps yourself and try out all the new features, and to help you out, click here!