We came to Grenoble and we thought we can use the public transport along with EXIT.ROCKS and reduce our contribution to Grenoble pollution.
However, to our surprise, Google only works with car routes, bike and walking. Most of the good places around Grenoble like Vercors, Belladonna, Lac de Laffrey, Chartreuse etc are not indicated by google maps transit service to reach with public transport and is not easily reachable with the bike or walking, which leaves us using Car.
We were not aware of Metro Mobility and Transisere apps provided by the local public transport operators on mobile. We then downloaded their application and it was a pain to type the destination as we have to search on paper brochures or website for the exact address of our destination and only then would these applications work.
For eg., I want to go to Chartreuse Monastery using public transport and please assume I am a foreigner and type Chartreuse in Metro Mobility and Transisere apps, I will never find my way to Chartreuse Monastery.
PS: ISERE tourism website also has Directions with Google Maps button, which falls into the same issue, which doesn’t promote public transport and contributes to pollution.
We couldn’t take matters into our hands, as there is an issue with data usage policy which stops Google from using the transit information provided as open data by the region.
As a policy of THINKTANK, Innovation never stops and we always find a way out.
This leads us to think if it was the same problem for visitors coming to Taiwan. To demonstrate how best we can solve this problem we customised EXIT.ROCKS with single click route mapping to overcome all the issues I experience in Grenoble.
This innovation triggered another requirement to map journeys for sports personals who visited Taipei for Universiade. This is a huge event in Taiwan with lots of athletes visiting Taiwan. As we had a grip on the system out there, we mapped all the sports location across the city and it helped locals/fans and visitors/players to plan their journey to get the sporting venues easily.
We also had a leading IT conference WCIT in Taipei and we worked the same way to resolve congestion and confusion to get the event locations. This is a huge shift for EXIT from journey planning from A to B towards Event Managment.
As we always listen to the concerns of the SUBWAY metro commuters and station staff using CLAPPIO.
Players were requesting station staff and via CLAPPIO if there were places in and around Taipei reachable using public transport. This leads us to extend EXIT from SMART Mobility to SMART Tourism with Experience Taiwan section.
Please note what we did with Experience Taiwan section on EXIT.ROCKS is highlighting all the best know places accessible by public transport and the user didn’t have to even type the destination. They would just tap, scroll and tap to get to their selected Touristic destination. There is no need to type any address or remember names.
Recommendation: Extend EXIT.ROCKS to GRENOBLE and RHONE ALPS region with a similar solution and promote local green public transport TAG and Transisere.