Reachability Search

Reachability search for perfect planning

Journey planners usually give information about the duration of a journey from one place to another. However, for that start and destination must be defined and therefore known in advance. In order to figure out which locations can be reached in a certain time, HaCon has developed the reachability search. The solution translates time into space – as distances in public transport do not tell much about the travel times.

Multi-dimesional search

The reachability search operates multi-dimensionally: from a starting point, all possible destinations that may be reached within a given time period are computed. In addition, the duration of the trip, products of public transport and the number of transfers as well as private transport can be selected. The reachability search processes queries in real-time and works in a co-modal way. For this, the several modes of transport, as buses, trains, cars, bikes and also walking are shown on a map to compare them at first sight. For calculating car, bike and walking distances, HaCon uses the xRoute Server from PTV.

The algorithm behind the reachability search calculates 50,000 destinations within one second. After entering starting point and desired travel time, the passenger receives all results easily comparable on a map.

Always find the right place
In addition, further data, such as hotels, public institutions, banks, cultural and sports facilities and garages have been integrated. With one click, users retrieve important additional information useful for their planning. 

With just one click, users see all cultural facilities, such as cinemas, museums, etc. If you move the computer mouse over each icon, the name of the place pops up. In this case, the user can see where the museum "Wasserwerk" is located.

All results are displayed on the map view. At a glance, users can compare which locations or regions they can reach with different modes of transport. The entire area inside the blue line can be reached by bike. The grey area represents the locations that can be reached by public transport within one hour. The darker the grey, the longer it takes to reach the destination.

The index-tab at the top of the right enables the display of POIs as hotels, sights as well as restaurants and cultural facilities. Who is looking for a budget hotel which can be reached in less than 80 minutes by a maximum of two change-overs from the fair grounds of Hannover, could find one in Göttingen or Wolfsburg. From these cities, the trip to Hannover on the ICE-train takes less than 80 minutes. Also from Minden, Hameln, Braunschweig or Nienburg, visitors get to Hannover by fast and convenient public transport.