26 ms·

Show HN: A map that shows you how far you can go for a given time or distance

455 points by DanFau 8y ago

cridenour 8y ago
If you want to build your own with OpenStreetMap data and traffic included, checkout OpenTripPlanner. http://docs.opentripplanner.org/en/latest/Intermediate-Tutorial/#calculating-travel-time-isochrones http://docs.opentripplanner.org/en/latest/Intermediate-Tutor...
- Bromskloss 8y ago
  Does it include connections to data sources for traffic, bus departures, and such, or do you have to provide them yourself?
  - cridenour 8y ago
    You have to provide them yourself but it accepts any format I've thrown at it in the past.
    - Bromskloss 8y ago
      OK, I was just hoping that it would have found the relevant data sources for me already.
- n4r9 8y ago
  What do you mean by "traffic included"? From googling around it looks like OTP has some support for OpenTraffic data, i.e. static average travel times rather live updated traffic.
  - cridenour 8y ago
    Ah yes, I meant historical rather than live.
codingdave 8y ago
I like the idea - but it isn't working well for my location, at the base of a canyon in Utah, with mountains on 3 sides of me and a big lake on the 4th. It looks like it knows that there are canyons and roads and obstacles that need to be accounted for, but the spikes jutting out from my location don't follow the roads or terrain. FWIW, the site at: https://maps.openrouteservice.org/reach https://maps.openrouteservice.org/reach also fails to compute accurately from my location for an hour, but does work accurately for 50 minutes or less. If nothing else, maybe I'm a good test case?
- DanFau 8y ago
  Seems you are a good test case. Could you share your map with the "share this map" button ? So I can figure it out
  - codingdave 8y ago
    Sure, it is shared at: https://oalley.net/map/b4e https://oalley.net/map/b4e If it helps, the 3 points going east are probably due to 2 canyons that do go east of town, one of which splits into 2 roads after a mile or so. And many of the others are similar in that, yes, there is a road that would extend your reach in those directions... but not quite where the map is drawing it. There are two areas that are complete anomalies: the path going NE through Springville and the one going SSW towards Levan have zero correlation with any reasonable roads - those both are flying straight over mountain ranges.
    - DanFau 8y ago
      Thank you, I will study it.
      - Yusu 8y ago
        Another wrong map. https://oalley.net/map/b4u https://oalley.net/map/b4u In 8h you can get to Salamanca(East of Barcelona) according to Google Maps, so like half of Spain should be marked. It's also interesting that according to this, you can get to Monaco(6h 34m on Gmaps) , but no to Marseille (4h 54m on GMaps).
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
VMG 8y ago
I wish you could show us the source code :)
wenc 8y ago
This is a classic application of isochrone maps [1]. I used this Python code [2] to figure out where to live that had a reasonable commute. However, these do not account for traffic conditions. The paid Google Maps API provides that information however and it is easily incorporated into the code. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isochrone_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isochrone_map [2] isocronut: https://github.com/drewfustin/isocronut https://github.com/drewfustin/isocronut blogpost: http://drewfustin.com/isochrones/ http://drewfustin.com/isochrones/
amarant 8y ago
this is really cool! i just wish such a tool was available for my city (stockholm)! do you have any plans on expanding beyond France in the future?
- robinwassen 8y ago
  There is one: https://app.traveltimeplatform.com/#/search/0_lat=59.34543&0_lng=18.03218&0_title=Norra%20Stationsgatan%2093%2C%20Stockholm%2C%20Sweden https://app.traveltimeplatform.com/#/search/0_lat=59.34543&0...
- DanFau 8y ago
  The English version is very new, if the English version is successful I will expand transit and bike mode beyong France.
WorkLifeBalance 8y ago
Starting near London right clicking the map it then restricted to "France Only" (which I couldn't seem to change) and with 2 hours on a bike the result was a blob somewhere in the English Channel. Interesting concept though!
- m3rc 8y ago
  It looks like bike and train are just supported in France
- DanFau 8y ago
  For now bike mode is only available in France. However, if I have enough traffic outside France I will implement it for the rest of the world.
nicoburns 8y ago
This would be super-useful if it could do smaller scales (e.g. 10 minutes walk)
- DanFau 8y ago
  We will add walk feature soon.
npteljes 8y ago
OpenRouteService[0] also offers this functionality, and it lets you customize the hell out of it too. [0] https://maps.openrouteservice.org/reach https://maps.openrouteservice.org/reach
- black_puppydog 8y ago
  And for Grenoble (where I know a bit what I can and cannot do) the predictions regarding going up the mountains are quite a bit more realistic... :P https://maps.openrouteservice.org/reach?n1=45.184578&n2=5.77486&n3=12&a=45.19257,5.72996&b=1a&i=0&j1=60&j2=60&g1=-1&g2=0&h2=3&k1=en-US&k2=km https://maps.openrouteservice.org/reach?n1=45.184578&n2=5.77...
sandrobfc 8y ago
It's a very cool concept and definitely has its upsides, but I was a bit disappointed about not being able to choose walking distances or periods of less than 1 hour. Also, the distances in my city (Lisbon) were somewhat unrealistic. Dunno if it works better in larger cities.
- DanFau 8y ago
  You should be able to pick period less than 1 hour. If you are still not able to do it let me know. I hope to be able to add walking feature soon.
sveme 8y ago
Really nice tool - is it using traffic conditions right now? To elaborate, I first entered 4 hrs from Munich, then added another half an hour to it and got a counterintuitive map (see oalley.net/map/b3y): I would have expected the 4:30 hrs map to just extend a little further than the 4 hrs map, but in reality, some parts that I could have reached in 4 hrs are not reachable in 4:30 hrs. Any idea what's going on? It seems to have issues with paths into or crossing the alps.
- DanFau 8y ago
  No the website is not using traffic conditions. The test case you have provided to me is very interesting. An heuristic is used to get the area and I think the issue is there.
- bethling 8y ago
  Without considering traffic it's not overly useful for me. When I put in my address, some of the places it tells me I could reach in an hour, I'd be lucky to reach in 2 most times of the day.
monkeydust 8y ago
Nice tool, does it not work for UK Trains / Tube?
- DanFau 8y ago
  Not for the moment, but if there is enough traffic from UK and the data are available I will add it.
jihadjihad 8y ago
Love how the name is basically "Où aller?" in French ("Where to go?"). Really interesting concept!
- DanFau 8y ago
  Thank you for guessing it! My French friends don't always guess it.
Herald_MJ 8y ago
Tried this in London for bicycle routes and it's completely broken: https://imgur.com/a/mF4CU43 https://imgur.com/a/mF4CU43.
- rocmcd 8y ago
  It looks like the bike functionality is only supported in France.
- michaelbrooks 8y ago
  Looks like a slightly broken bat signal.
- levesque 8y ago
  Yeah bicycle routes don't seem to work. It's sad I was really curious to see how far an hour route could take me!
- DanFau 8y ago
  Bicycle mode is only supported in France for the moment.
bena 8y ago
Is anyone else getting simply wrong information? I put in my work address and a time of one hour. It shows two of my previous home address as being over an hour away. It takes me about 40 - 50 minutes to get to work now from my current address. It took my about an hour from the other address. Also, there needs to be a way to clear the map. Right now, I'm just overlaying times. I don't know if I'm just missing it on the UI but there needs to be a way to distinguish between adding more areas and replacing an area.
- dnel 8y ago
  yeah, it says I can commute in half an hour, but unfortunately it's 45 minutes on a good day at best. A little too optimistic for me.
- DanFau 8y ago
  Traffic condition or not taken into account, maybe that is why you did not get what you expected ? You can remove an area by clicking on remove icon near to it at the bottom left of the webpage (only available on desktop). I will think about adding a remove all button.
  - bena 8y ago
    Ok, I see what happened. I had it open on a laptop screen that was 1366 x 768 so the little toolbar things didn't show up. They were below the page. When I moved it to a screen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080, they show up. Seems like a UI bug, those things disappear when the browser window gets to be a certain height. Also, I checked the reverse on one of the directions. So from A to B and B to A. One way shows that it is possible to do in an hour, while the reverse shows that it can't be done. While I understand that road conditions may be different in each direction in general, in this specific case, I know the conditions are the same. There's also some weird artifacts, like parts of roads skipped. Places designated as "an hour away" that are only reachable by first driving through areas designated as unreachable in an hour.
JeanMarcS 8y ago
Service is down if you switch to French. Just so you know :-) (Vous êtes basés à Toulouse ?)
- DanFau 8y ago
  Hopefully the .net domain name is not down, and I don't understand why. I am checking with my web host for the french version. (Oui je suis basé sur Toulouse)
metaprinter 8y ago
reminds me of these maps from the 1800s showing how long it takes to get places from NYC by horse. http://users.humboldt.edu/ogayle/hist110/geography.html http://users.humboldt.edu/ogayle/hist110/geography.html
georgecmu 8y ago
Very cool idea, but still quite a few bugs even on relatively simple cases. Seems like it gets thrown off by coastlines, borders, and smaller (non-interstate) roads. For example see zigzagging in Virginia and missing coverage between Buffalo and London, ON: https://oalley.net/map/b4l https://oalley.net/map/b4l
snvzz 8y ago
What about walking? The most basic usage is missing! But whis works: https://maps.openrouteservice.org/reach https://maps.openrouteservice.org/reach
- DanFau 8y ago
  It is scheduled to be added soon :)
efficax 8y ago
Seems Europe-focussed (which is fine). Definitely inaccurate readings for the US. Shows a 5 hour drive as an 8 hour one, for example.
- DanFau 8y ago
  Thanks I will double check speed limit for the US.
laken 8y ago
I love this! I'm in Orlando, Florida which has some rather weird behavior (mostly within the state of Florida, namely going down south), but other than that it is really cool. I think the peninsular shape of Florida is throwing it off a bit.
- Kagerjay 8y ago
  I live in Orlando, FL as well. It looks like a 4 leaf clover on a one hour destination map. Everything looks accurate though
  - laken 8y ago
    The one hour one is accurate for me, but if you try 3 or 4 hours it gets a bit weird.
    - Kagerjay 8y ago
      2 hours is still reasonable though, but yea 3 hours looks really strange though
Raphmedia 8y ago
Pretty neat. It's ignoring some roads when doing it from "Montreal, Québec, Canada" even with 8 hours... It should be going farther east on the south side of the St. Lawrence river towards "Gaspé". Otherwise, it's a really great idea.
- glitchc 8y ago
  Same. It did not make it to Toronto from Ottawa in five hours, even though I routinely get there in 4.5 hours.
croisillon 8y ago
Bike Citizens (German/Austrian App) does it (for bikes) in urban areas (mainly in central Europe at the moment but not only) as well https://map.bikecitizens.net/us-newyork#/!/1/1/40.98604,-74.05596/*,5 https://map.bikecitizens.net/us-newyork#/!/1/1/40.98604,-74....
ibdf 8y ago
I tried using it for US locations, got a little note underneath the search bar saying "France Only". It's true Americans don't like to go out of their way :)
aw3c2 8y ago
> Time zones are also called isochronous or catchment area. IsochrOnes. Catchment areas are something different.
- DanFau 8y ago
  Thanks I will fix it.
harperlee 8y ago
Cool idea but I can easily come up with areas reachable within X minutes but not within X+d minutes... Which would never happen unless you can't slow down! And not in a fancy way; just starting by car from Madrid, Berlin or Paris and looking into main roads.
chillydawg 8y ago
Nice. Me and two partners had something like this in 2012. We tried to sell it to zoopla/rightmove/etc but none of them were interested. We integrated it with stuff like supermarkets, clinics, gyms, etc and allowed you to build quite complex searches with multiple locations and constraints. It was called locatable.com and is now thoroughly dead. I wish you luck monetising this somehow!
- DanFau 8y ago
  It is very interesting hat you had a similar idea, would you like to share your experience with me ? If so, can you send me an email at : contact@oalley.fr ?
  - entropie 8y ago
    Do you plan some kind of API?
- sxv 8y ago
  See also: Mapnificent https://vimeo.com/16362921 https://vimeo.com/16362921 https://www.mapnificent.net/ https://www.mapnificent.net/
- sammm 8y ago
  Did you always have in mind that you wanted to sell it to zoopla/rightmove? What was your initial pain point that caused you to develop your idea?
  - chillydawg 8y ago
    We had a rough plan of getting into the rental\sales listing game, using our map and search engine as the killer feature. Turns out to make any headway at all in that game you need big bucks as it's entirety marketing driven. We had way more features than this product and made exactly 0 money from it. We were pretty young and commercially incompetant though.
- barrkel 8y ago
  Would have been very useful to me back when I was buying my house. But I'm not sure that people like Rightmove etc. aren't on the side of property sales agents, who prefer customers that have less information. Rightmove is just a lead generation tool for an estate agent. Once someone walks in the door, they can bring them around to two or three properties, rather than just the property they saw on the website. Information about how hard it is to get to work, to a supermarket, etc. are just reasons not to buy.
jmpman 8y ago
I’d like an option to show a line which is the same travel time between two starting destinations. Additionally, I’d like to show multiple travel times from both locations (15min, 30,45,60). Finally, I can’t figure out how to clear an address through the UI.
nside 8y ago
If you're interested on working on similar technology full time, please let me know at denis@curbside.com Stack is mostly in Clojure & Go
pierot 8y ago
Would be interesting to have a running / walking option where you could fill in your approximate min/km and have that plotted.
- codeafin 8y ago
  This is what I clicked on the link for - would be nice to have.
entropie 8y ago
Does it include calculations for altitudes? Because if hikers and outdoor enthusiasts would love (and use) it.
- DanFau 8y ago
  No for the moment for biking and soon walking altitudes are not include. But I have to figure a way to take it into account.
yomansat 8y ago
Very nice! The landing page explains everything very quickly. FYI the public transport calendar is in French :)
hateful 8y ago
I was interested in seeing the meetup feature, but I don't see how you can supply multiple addresses currently.
- thebluehawk 8y ago
  Type in one address, click compute. Type in another address, click compute. It overlays them on the same map.
  - hateful 8y ago
    Works, thanks.
51Cards 8y ago
Does it take into account time of day? It's off a little for my area, just outside of Toronto. Putting in a 2 hour window comes up short east/west (by about 25%) but is relatively accurate North of here. Problem is knowing the speed of various highways at various times.
- DanFau 8y ago
  It does not take traffic information, so depending on the time of the day it may not reflect the exact area.
  - 51Cards 8y ago
    If that's the case then it's off globally. The numbers would have actually been marginally more accurate if it was factoring in traffic, but if it's not then it's off by quite a bit.
tda 8y ago
Cool, but now I would love to see a map which is colored by the total are (km^2) reachable in a given time.
egocodedinsol 8y ago
great touch: changing the time keeps the old contour and plots a new one in a different color automatically.
tantalor 8y ago
Does not do well near Lake Erie: https://oalley.net/map/b5y https://oalley.net/map/b5y
- DanFau 8y ago
  Thanks for the feedback I will try to improve it.
newnewpdro 8y ago
It would be interesting if in addition to time or distance one could search by limits of energy.
xbryanx 8y ago
I love this. I immediately wanted to see how two cities overlap, but found the UI a bit difficult for this. I want to be able to see where's the best place for me and my friend in another city to meet up for lunch or something. I wish you could search a city and then edit the time you enter until you see two blobs overlapping....bingo lunch spot. https://d.pr/i/9DbVel https://d.pr/i/9DbVel Unfortunately, to do this, I just had to keep entering new searches with incrementally new times. Anyways, just a feature idea. Nice work.
eugene-s 8y ago
That's a nice idea! Especially if you plan out a weekend trip with kids and don't want to spend more than X hours driving. 1. There seems to be a problem with water https://imgur.com/a/TjyeKmV https://imgur.com/a/TjyeKmV No ferries or bridges in the south 2. And there seems to be a problem with sharing (Chrome on Mac) 3. Tried to change the option to bike - and it got be redirected to Cleveland
seshagiric 8y ago
Looks like Isochrones are making a come back. Most mapping solution providers already provide it, here is one from Bing Maps: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/maps/isochrone https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/maps/isochrone
vidanay 8y ago
Very nice, but the algo seems to get confused some times. There are places you can get to in 3.5 hours from Chapel Hill NC that you can't get to in 4.0 hours. https://oalley.net/map/b6u https://oalley.net/map/b6u And apparently, I can't get to Evanston, IL. Ferris Bueller would be disappointed. https://oalley.net/map/b6x https://oalley.net/map/b6x
yawz 8y ago
Interesting idea, but I think there's a glitch. When I look at where I live and set 45mins, what I get is not fully covered by what I get for 50 mins. But if a place is within my 45min car ride, I would expect that place to be included to the 50min car ride zone. Am I missing something? Screenshot: https://postimg.cc/image/vgw9mdr6z/ https://postimg.cc/image/vgw9mdr6z/ (blue: 45mins, red: 50mins)
- DanFau 8y ago
  No you are not missing something, I have to improve the algorithm to avoid this kind of issue.
t27 8y ago
Really cool and fast visualization! Upvoted This might help the OP (also other readers and for reference) - It might be competing with the OPs app, but Here.com has a solution for this in one of their developer APIs(https://developer.here.com/documentation/routing/topics/request-isoline.html https://developer.here.com/documentation/routing/topics/requ...), it returns an isoline(contour) based on multiple options(max distance, max time or max fuel consumption) similar to the OPs solution
jokoon 8y ago
I would be more interested in a map that shows difficulty of access in general, like a mix of distance to a high road or fast road, if that doesn't already exist. It sounds more relevant because you don't need a starting point.
beemeetoo 8y ago
Cool idea, could be useful.... I did see some real estate sites using something similar to show/estimate the commute. When I looked in my area, it looked semi-accuraete, but far from reliable when I compared to google maps: https://s22.postimg.cc/lxfvu3ag1/How_far_can_I_go_-_Oalley_fr.png https://s22.postimg.cc/lxfvu3ag1/How_far_can_I_go_-_Oalley_f...
- DanFau 8y ago
  Thanks for the great feedback. I will try to find a solution
dcision 8y ago
I like using WalkScore for this. It's designed for finding apartments, but it can give travel times by walking, transit, driving, and biking, accounting for things like where transit stops are, highway exits, rush hour traffic, etc. https://www.walkscore.com/apartments/search/Washington-DC https://www.walkscore.com/apartments/search/Washington-DC
deminature 8y ago
Cool idea, but it's quoting 15 minutes to get from Brooklyn, NY to New Jersey cross-town via Manhattan, while the time quoted via Google Maps including traffic conditions is approximately 1hr, which sounds more reasonable. Would be good to integrate some kind of traffic awareness to get more accurate estimates. Excited to see how this develops.
- ericcholis 8y ago
  I'm noticing something similar for Buffalo, NY. It would appear to estimate driving time based on distance to nearest highway and then highway to destination. Typical traffic times don't seem to come into play at all.
spreeker 8y ago
https://mapitout.iamsterdam.com/# https://mapitout.iamsterdam.com/# deployed 2 days ago by the api.data.amsterdam.nl team.
kerbalspacepro 8y ago
It looks really pretty, but at least here in the Midatlantic, it ignores traffic by A LOT.
amerkhalid 8y ago
This is really awesome. A few years ago, my friends would argue about the a good spot for everyone to meet at. Idea for another project: (I tried it too but gave up quickly) Since now my friends are all over the US and the world, we argue about the best city to meet at. It would be awesome if there is a website that takes your and your friend’s budget, current city, and visa requirements and figure out the best place to fly to for everyone. Of course, this will be easy to monetize if you can get referral commission from airlines and hotels.
space_fountain 8y ago
This is really cool. I'd written some code to do roughly this in c++ awhile back based on data from Open Street Maps but I gave up when I realized there wasn't good data on speeds in that dataset.
sizzzzlerz 8y ago
Needs work. A drive I would make from my bay area home to my parents home in the San Joaquin Valley in 3-1/2 hours. After increasing the travel time, the map still shows me short of my destinations after 8 hours. Nice idea though.
ggggtez 8y ago
FYI: All shared maps are trivially enumerable. Probably don't use your home address. https://oalley.net/map/b4x https://oalley.net/map/b4x https://oalley.net/map/b4y https://oalley.net/map/b4y https://oalley.net/map/b4z https://oalley.net/map/b4z
- alonmower 8y ago
  Is there really risk here? The existence of one's address is pretty public
  - theobon 8y ago
    The existence of an address is public. The relationship between an address and a hacker news account is typically not public. Providing this link can make doxxing significantly easier.
    - JimDabell 8y ago
      Sure, but the maps being enumerable doesn't reveal a relationship between an address and a specific Hacker News account. The maps being enumerable doesn't seem to be noteworthy.
      - Kiro 8y ago
        Let's say you write that you are from Seattle in your profile and post a comment immediately after. Someone could check the recent maps that start in Seattle.
- kwhitefoot 8y ago
  > don't use your home address. Why not? Addresses are public information anyway.
- barrkel 8y ago
  Every home has somebody living there. Unless you can connect it to an identity, and have a particular reason to target that identity, it's not much of a reveal.
jfries 8y ago
This is fantastic and there is great potential, but would be better with better accuracy on driving time, and also public transportation times worldwide. Also an important input is commute start times for each entered address (in case spouses start their work day different times). The above are all acailable through the Google Maps API. I would happily pay $10 or more for an accurate customized commute map. The rational value is likely way higher for families looking for an area to buy in which good commute times for all.
JamesUtah07 8y ago
Very cool. Doesn't work well in chicago for short distances (less than 1 hour) but I could see myself using this a lot for planning like a weekend trip. I would love to know the algorithm for this. It seems very fast and mostly accurate
djwinter 8y ago
I thought the IP based geolocation was creepy accurate. Looks like just a coincidence: I arrived in Toulouse 3 hours ago!
a_lieb 8y ago
Very neat. Seems quite accurate for my area. The least accurate example I found was a spot that takes 25 minutes listed as taking 35 (confirmed on Google Maps). Topographic barriers and traffic seem to be the big problems for other posters, and neither are a huge factor in my part of Western Mass.
zjaffee 8y ago
From my perspective it looks like it doesn't account for traffic, is that generally the case or is it just because I'm using it at 11am PST on west coast locations?
- cascom 8y ago
  totally agree - perhaps it should should just have two "blobs" one for best case and another for worst cast traffic wise...
kroltan 8y ago
Would be interesting to run a ton of queries in a gridlike fashion, and use the resulting polygons' areas to graph a map of mobility.
- DanFau 8y ago
  What is a mobility map ?
  - kroltan 8y ago
    I don't know, I guess I could tautologically define it as a map that shows how far you can get from every point in a given timeframe. Sort of a "heatmap" of distance. That way you could discover the most "well-connected" locations within a city, and even potentially use that data for urban planning.
taurath 8y ago
Really interesting - though it seems a bit innacurate for my location (Seattle, WA). https://imgur.com/a/FqtCTBj https://imgur.com/a/FqtCTBj ^ It shows that about the furthest I can go in 2 hours (east) is Tanner, WA, while in reality I can go about twice that distance and do frequently, nearly all the way to Ellensberg. The north/south part looks correct.
legojoey17 8y ago
This is awesome! I did a similar thing and built isochronic maps while at a start-up for business intelligence back in 2014. I'm curious how you got the going, data processing and all. When I'd done it I set up all roads and continents in OSM but it took quite a bit of work to do so. I'd used Osmium to import everything into postgres and set it up to using pgrouting. It took quite a bit of work but with a lot of query mangling it had a lot of traversal cost variates (street type, population, daytime pop) it had pretty good approximations of Google! The most awful part was trying to set up the data to be usable, quick, and deal with large queries (set it up for a maximum 150km without issue), but it was a great challenge!
aj7 8y ago
I give it my old address in Sunnyvale and it persists in sticking me in Kansas.
swozey 8y ago
This is awesome, I've been wanting something like this for road trips. Please make it more than 8 hours, though. I can barely get out of Texas..
- DanFau 8y ago
  I did not think of that issue. What would be a good max trip time for you ?
JoblessWonder 8y ago
Hey DanFau, if you are interested in creating some viral marketing... you can update/fix this popular map of the closest baseball stadium to any location in the United States: https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/7zil08/map_of_the_us_showing_the_closest_mlb_team_by/ https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/7zil08/map_of_the...
- DanFau 8y ago
  Good Idea for doing viral marketing :)
drumttocs8 8y ago
Doesn't Zillow have a similar tool to filter for properties within a given commute? You type in your work address and, say, 45 minute commute, and it redraws the bounds. Pretty cool tool.
satsuma 8y ago
this map does not like michigan, at all: https://oalley.net/map/ba2 https://oalley.net/map/ba2 specifically the upper peninsula. it looks like it doesn't have enough data as you go towards the rural north, which doesn't shock me at all, and extrapolates from that.
- DanFau 8y ago
  Thanks for the feedback I will try to improve it with your example.
oldstrangers 8y ago
I like this, but I really want something for flight times. I'm always curious just where I could get to for a weekend trip and a 6-8 hour flight.
- DanFau 8y ago
  Great idea of a feature to be added. But I am not sure flight data are easy to get.
retsci 8y ago
We have developed a similar tool here: https://drivetimemapper.com/ https://drivetimemapper.com/ We're turning on a free user account for people to try out: User: testuser@drivetimemapper.com Password: drivetimemaps It was a side project for us that we thought was cool enough to be a standalone product.
- sohhh 8y ago
  That works!
zone411 8y ago
My company created something quite similar a few years ago. We also have a tool http://www.city-data.com/MeetingPlace/ http://www.city-data.com/MeetingPlace/ that allows you to find an optimized meeting place for two or more people based on the chosen mode of transportation (car, bike, foot).
- bodyloss 8y ago
  I've been looking for a tool like this for ages! Are there plans to support the UK? All that happens is I get the "Something went wrong" message currently.
  - zone411 8y ago
    Thanks for the input! I'll look into this.
TimTheTinker 8y ago
This is almost identical to a drive-time site buffer in Esri Business Analyst (I’m a dev on that team). The next step is to create reports and infographics based on demographic data. Screenshot: https://pasteboard.co/HxvXrzN.png https://pasteboard.co/HxvXrzN.png
- retsci 8y ago
  Our product utilizes this in a web based platform with reports/demographics available: https://drivetimemapper.com/ https://drivetimemapper.com/ Free demo!
  - TimTheTinker 8y ago
    Wait, so you guys provide a service that piggybacks on ArcGIS Online’s Geoenrichmemt services? Wow.
    - retsci 8y ago
      Basically, yes. For our day jobs we build predictive models that depend on dynamic spatial data pulls via the geoenrichment tool in various forms. Happy to discuss in more detail if interested.jonathan 'dot' wilson /at/ retailscientifics 'dot' com.
foota 8y ago
I think this may be modeling the map as distance per radian, which doesn't really work.
camikazeg 8y ago
I've used a service from Free Map Tools for years that did this exact same thing. It was very accurate, but appears to have recently been taken down. https://www.freemaptools.com/how-far-can-i-travel.htm https://www.freemaptools.com/how-far-can-i-travel.htm
nemoniac 8y ago
I really wanted to like this but the site is totally unusable. Damn shame.
- DanFau 8y ago
  Sorry we get lots of traffic and the server was not able to handle it well. As HN news wave has passed the site is more stable now :)
bhasi 8y ago
Hey man, nice app! I showed this to my friends, and then discovered that flights are currently not supported. Could you please support flight times as well? That would be killer. Thanks in advance.
- DanFau 8y ago
  I will think about it, I need to get data but that would be awesome.
sreggiani 8y ago
Putain ça vient de Toulouse con!
- DanFau 8y ago
  Et oui :)

455 points by DanFau 8y ago

If you want to build your own with OpenStreetMap data and traffic included, checkout OpenTripPlanner. http://docs.opentripplanner.org/en/latest/Intermediate-Tutorial/#calculating-travel-time-isochrones http://docs.opentripplanner.org/en/latest/Intermediate-Tutor...

Bromskloss 8y ago
Does it include connections to data sources for traffic, bus departures, and such, or do you have to provide them yourself?
- cridenour 8y ago
  You have to provide them yourself but it accepts any format I've thrown at it in the past.
  - Bromskloss 8y ago
    OK, I was just hoping that it would have found the relevant data sources for me already.
n4r9 8y ago
What do you mean by "traffic included"? From googling around it looks like OTP has some support for OpenTraffic data, i.e. static average travel times rather live updated traffic.
- cridenour 8y ago
  Ah yes, I meant historical rather than live.

codingdave 8y ago

I like the idea - but it isn't working well for my location, at the base of a canyon in Utah, with mountains on 3 sides of me and a big lake on the 4th. It looks like it knows that there are canyons and roads and obstacles that need to be accounted for, but the spikes jutting out from my location don't follow the roads or terrain. FWIW, the site at: https://maps.openrouteservice.org/reach https://maps.openrouteservice.org/reach also fails to compute accurately from my location for an hour, but does work accurately for 50 minutes or less. If nothing else, maybe I'm a good test case?

DanFau 8y ago
Seems you are a good test case. Could you share your map with the "share this map" button ? So I can figure it out
- codingdave 8y ago
  Sure, it is shared at: https://oalley.net/map/b4e https://oalley.net/map/b4e If it helps, the 3 points going east are probably due to 2 canyons that do go east of town, one of which splits into 2 roads after a mile or so. And many of the others are similar in that, yes, there is a road that would extend your reach in those directions... but not quite where the map is drawing it. There are two areas that are complete anomalies: the path going NE through Springville and the one going SSW towards Levan have zero correlation with any reasonable roads - those both are flying straight over mountain ranges.
  - DanFau 8y ago
    Thank you, I will study it.
    - Yusu 8y ago
      Another wrong map. https://oalley.net/map/b4u https://oalley.net/map/b4u In 8h you can get to Salamanca(East of Barcelona) according to Google Maps, so like half of Spain should be marked. It's also interesting that according to this, you can get to Monaco(6h 34m on Gmaps) , but no to Marseille (4h 54m on GMaps).

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

VMG 8y ago

I wish you could show us the source code :)

wenc 8y ago

This is a classic application of isochrone maps [1]. I used this Python code [2] to figure out where to live that had a reasonable commute. However, these do not account for traffic conditions. The paid Google Maps API provides that information however and it is easily incorporated into the code. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isochrone_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isochrone_map [2] isocronut: https://github.com/drewfustin/isocronut https://github.com/drewfustin/isocronut blogpost: http://drewfustin.com/isochrones/ http://drewfustin.com/isochrones/

amarant 8y ago

this is really cool! i just wish such a tool was available for my city (stockholm)! do you have any plans on expanding beyond France in the future?

robinwassen 8y ago
There is one: https://app.traveltimeplatform.com/#/search/0_lat=59.34543&0_lng=18.03218&0_title=Norra%20Stationsgatan%2093%2C%20Stockholm%2C%20Sweden https://app.traveltimeplatform.com/#/search/0_lat=59.34543&0...
DanFau 8y ago
The English version is very new, if the English version is successful I will expand transit and bike mode beyong France.

WorkLifeBalance 8y ago

Starting near London right clicking the map it then restricted to "France Only" (which I couldn't seem to change) and with 2 hours on a bike the result was a blob somewhere in the English Channel. Interesting concept though!

m3rc 8y ago
It looks like bike and train are just supported in France
DanFau 8y ago
For now bike mode is only available in France. However, if I have enough traffic outside France I will implement it for the rest of the world.

nicoburns 8y ago

This would be super-useful if it could do smaller scales (e.g. 10 minutes walk)

DanFau 8y ago
We will add walk feature soon.

npteljes 8y ago

OpenRouteService[0] also offers this functionality, and it lets you customize the hell out of it too. [0] https://maps.openrouteservice.org/reach https://maps.openrouteservice.org/reach

black_puppydog 8y ago
And for Grenoble (where I know a bit what I can and cannot do) the predictions regarding going up the mountains are quite a bit more realistic... :P https://maps.openrouteservice.org/reach?n1=45.184578&n2=5.77486&n3=12&a=45.19257,5.72996&b=1a&i=0&j1=60&j2=60&g1=-1&g2=0&h2=3&k1=en-US&k2=km https://maps.openrouteservice.org/reach?n1=45.184578&n2=5.77...

sandrobfc 8y ago

It's a very cool concept and definitely has its upsides, but I was a bit disappointed about not being able to choose walking distances or periods of less than 1 hour. Also, the distances in my city (Lisbon) were somewhat unrealistic. Dunno if it works better in larger cities.

DanFau 8y ago
You should be able to pick period less than 1 hour. If you are still not able to do it let me know. I hope to be able to add walking feature soon.

sveme 8y ago

Really nice tool - is it using traffic conditions right now? To elaborate, I first entered 4 hrs from Munich, then added another half an hour to it and got a counterintuitive map (see oalley.net/map/b3y): I would have expected the 4:30 hrs map to just extend a little further than the 4 hrs map, but in reality, some parts that I could have reached in 4 hrs are not reachable in 4:30 hrs. Any idea what's going on? It seems to have issues with paths into or crossing the alps.

DanFau 8y ago
No the website is not using traffic conditions. The test case you have provided to me is very interesting. An heuristic is used to get the area and I think the issue is there.
bethling 8y ago
Without considering traffic it's not overly useful for me. When I put in my address, some of the places it tells me I could reach in an hour, I'd be lucky to reach in 2 most times of the day.

monkeydust 8y ago

Nice tool, does it not work for UK Trains / Tube?

DanFau 8y ago
Not for the moment, but if there is enough traffic from UK and the data are available I will add it.

jihadjihad 8y ago

Love how the name is basically "Où aller?" in French ("Where to go?"). Really interesting concept!

DanFau 8y ago
Thank you for guessing it! My French friends don't always guess it.

Herald_MJ 8y ago

Tried this in London for bicycle routes and it's completely broken: https://imgur.com/a/mF4CU43 https://imgur.com/a/mF4CU43.

rocmcd 8y ago
It looks like the bike functionality is only supported in France.
michaelbrooks 8y ago
Looks like a slightly broken bat signal.
levesque 8y ago
Yeah bicycle routes don't seem to work. It's sad I was really curious to see how far an hour route could take me!
DanFau 8y ago
Bicycle mode is only supported in France for the moment.

bena 8y ago

Is anyone else getting simply wrong information? I put in my work address and a time of one hour. It shows two of my previous home address as being over an hour away. It takes me about 40 - 50 minutes to get to work now from my current address. It took my about an hour from the other address. Also, there needs to be a way to clear the map. Right now, I'm just overlaying times. I don't know if I'm just missing it on the UI but there needs to be a way to distinguish between adding more areas and replacing an area.

dnel 8y ago
yeah, it says I can commute in half an hour, but unfortunately it's 45 minutes on a good day at best. A little too optimistic for me.
DanFau 8y ago
Traffic condition or not taken into account, maybe that is why you did not get what you expected ? You can remove an area by clicking on remove icon near to it at the bottom left of the webpage (only available on desktop). I will think about adding a remove all button.
- bena 8y ago
  Ok, I see what happened. I had it open on a laptop screen that was 1366 x 768 so the little toolbar things didn't show up. They were below the page. When I moved it to a screen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080, they show up. Seems like a UI bug, those things disappear when the browser window gets to be a certain height. Also, I checked the reverse on one of the directions. So from A to B and B to A. One way shows that it is possible to do in an hour, while the reverse shows that it can't be done. While I understand that road conditions may be different in each direction in general, in this specific case, I know the conditions are the same. There's also some weird artifacts, like parts of roads skipped. Places designated as "an hour away" that are only reachable by first driving through areas designated as unreachable in an hour.

JeanMarcS 8y ago

Service is down if you switch to French. Just so you know :-) (Vous êtes basés à Toulouse ?)

DanFau 8y ago
Hopefully the .net domain name is not down, and I don't understand why. I am checking with my web host for the french version. (Oui je suis basé sur Toulouse)

metaprinter 8y ago

reminds me of these maps from the 1800s showing how long it takes to get places from NYC by horse. http://users.humboldt.edu/ogayle/hist110/geography.html http://users.humboldt.edu/ogayle/hist110/geography.html

georgecmu 8y ago

Very cool idea, but still quite a few bugs even on relatively simple cases. Seems like it gets thrown off by coastlines, borders, and smaller (non-interstate) roads. For example see zigzagging in Virginia and missing coverage between Buffalo and London, ON: https://oalley.net/map/b4l https://oalley.net/map/b4l

snvzz 8y ago

What about walking? The most basic usage is missing! But whis works: https://maps.openrouteservice.org/reach https://maps.openrouteservice.org/reach

DanFau 8y ago
It is scheduled to be added soon :)

efficax 8y ago

Seems Europe-focussed (which is fine). Definitely inaccurate readings for the US. Shows a 5 hour drive as an 8 hour one, for example.

DanFau 8y ago
Thanks I will double check speed limit for the US.

laken 8y ago

I love this! I'm in Orlando, Florida which has some rather weird behavior (mostly within the state of Florida, namely going down south), but other than that it is really cool. I think the peninsular shape of Florida is throwing it off a bit.

Kagerjay 8y ago
I live in Orlando, FL as well. It looks like a 4 leaf clover on a one hour destination map. Everything looks accurate though
- laken 8y ago
  The one hour one is accurate for me, but if you try 3 or 4 hours it gets a bit weird.
  - Kagerjay 8y ago
    2 hours is still reasonable though, but yea 3 hours looks really strange though

Raphmedia 8y ago

Pretty neat. It's ignoring some roads when doing it from "Montreal, Québec, Canada" even with 8 hours... It should be going farther east on the south side of the St. Lawrence river towards "Gaspé". Otherwise, it's a really great idea.

glitchc 8y ago
Same. It did not make it to Toronto from Ottawa in five hours, even though I routinely get there in 4.5 hours.

croisillon 8y ago

Bike Citizens (German/Austrian App) does it (for bikes) in urban areas (mainly in central Europe at the moment but not only) as well https://map.bikecitizens.net/us-newyork#/!/1/1/40.98604,-74.05596/*,5 https://map.bikecitizens.net/us-newyork#/!/1/1/40.98604,-74....

ibdf 8y ago

I tried using it for US locations, got a little note underneath the search bar saying "France Only". It's true Americans don't like to go out of their way :)

aw3c2 8y ago

> Time zones are also called isochronous or catchment area. IsochrOnes. Catchment areas are something different.

DanFau 8y ago
Thanks I will fix it.

harperlee 8y ago

Cool idea but I can easily come up with areas reachable within X minutes but not within X+d minutes... Which would never happen unless you can't slow down! And not in a fancy way; just starting by car from Madrid, Berlin or Paris and looking into main roads.

chillydawg 8y ago

Nice. Me and two partners had something like this in 2012. We tried to sell it to zoopla/rightmove/etc but none of them were interested. We integrated it with stuff like supermarkets, clinics, gyms, etc and allowed you to build quite complex searches with multiple locations and constraints. It was called locatable.com and is now thoroughly dead. I wish you luck monetising this somehow!

DanFau 8y ago
It is very interesting hat you had a similar idea, would you like to share your experience with me ? If so, can you send me an email at : contact@oalley.fr ?
- entropie 8y ago
  Do you plan some kind of API?
sxv 8y ago
See also: Mapnificent https://vimeo.com/16362921 https://vimeo.com/16362921 https://www.mapnificent.net/ https://www.mapnificent.net/
sammm 8y ago
Did you always have in mind that you wanted to sell it to zoopla/rightmove? What was your initial pain point that caused you to develop your idea?
- chillydawg 8y ago
  We had a rough plan of getting into the rental\sales listing game, using our map and search engine as the killer feature. Turns out to make any headway at all in that game you need big bucks as it's entirety marketing driven. We had way more features than this product and made exactly 0 money from it. We were pretty young and commercially incompetant though.
barrkel 8y ago
Would have been very useful to me back when I was buying my house. But I'm not sure that people like Rightmove etc. aren't on the side of property sales agents, who prefer customers that have less information. Rightmove is just a lead generation tool for an estate agent. Once someone walks in the door, they can bring them around to two or three properties, rather than just the property they saw on the website. Information about how hard it is to get to work, to a supermarket, etc. are just reasons not to buy.

jmpman 8y ago

I’d like an option to show a line which is the same travel time between two starting destinations. Additionally, I’d like to show multiple travel times from both locations (15min, 30,45,60). Finally, I can’t figure out how to clear an address through the UI.

nside 8y ago

If you're interested on working on similar technology full time, please let me know at denis@curbside.com Stack is mostly in Clojure & Go

pierot 8y ago

Would be interesting to have a running / walking option where you could fill in your approximate min/km and have that plotted.

codeafin 8y ago
This is what I clicked on the link for - would be nice to have.

entropie 8y ago

Does it include calculations for altitudes? Because if hikers and outdoor enthusiasts would love (and use) it.

DanFau 8y ago
No for the moment for biking and soon walking altitudes are not include. But I have to figure a way to take it into account.

yomansat 8y ago

Very nice! The landing page explains everything very quickly. FYI the public transport calendar is in French :)

hateful 8y ago

I was interested in seeing the meetup feature, but I don't see how you can supply multiple addresses currently.

thebluehawk 8y ago
Type in one address, click compute. Type in another address, click compute. It overlays them on the same map.
- hateful 8y ago
  Works, thanks.

51Cards 8y ago

Does it take into account time of day? It's off a little for my area, just outside of Toronto. Putting in a 2 hour window comes up short east/west (by about 25%) but is relatively accurate North of here. Problem is knowing the speed of various highways at various times.

DanFau 8y ago
It does not take traffic information, so depending on the time of the day it may not reflect the exact area.
- 51Cards 8y ago
  If that's the case then it's off globally. The numbers would have actually been marginally more accurate if it was factoring in traffic, but if it's not then it's off by quite a bit.

tda 8y ago

Cool, but now I would love to see a map which is colored by the total are (km^2) reachable in a given time.

egocodedinsol 8y ago

great touch: changing the time keeps the old contour and plots a new one in a different color automatically.

tantalor 8y ago

Does not do well near Lake Erie: https://oalley.net/map/b5y https://oalley.net/map/b5y

DanFau 8y ago
Thanks for the feedback I will try to improve it.

newnewpdro 8y ago

It would be interesting if in addition to time or distance one could search by limits of energy.

xbryanx 8y ago

I love this. I immediately wanted to see how two cities overlap, but found the UI a bit difficult for this. I want to be able to see where's the best place for me and my friend in another city to meet up for lunch or something. I wish you could search a city and then edit the time you enter until you see two blobs overlapping....bingo lunch spot. https://d.pr/i/9DbVel https://d.pr/i/9DbVel Unfortunately, to do this, I just had to keep entering new searches with incrementally new times. Anyways, just a feature idea. Nice work.

eugene-s 8y ago

That's a nice idea! Especially if you plan out a weekend trip with kids and don't want to spend more than X hours driving. 1. There seems to be a problem with water https://imgur.com/a/TjyeKmV https://imgur.com/a/TjyeKmV No ferries or bridges in the south 2. And there seems to be a problem with sharing (Chrome on Mac) 3. Tried to change the option to bike - and it got be redirected to Cleveland

seshagiric 8y ago

Looks like Isochrones are making a come back. Most mapping solution providers already provide it, here is one from Bing Maps: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/maps/isochrone https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/maps/isochrone

vidanay 8y ago

Very nice, but the algo seems to get confused some times. There are places you can get to in 3.5 hours from Chapel Hill NC that you can't get to in 4.0 hours. https://oalley.net/map/b6u https://oalley.net/map/b6u And apparently, I can't get to Evanston, IL. Ferris Bueller would be disappointed. https://oalley.net/map/b6x https://oalley.net/map/b6x

yawz 8y ago

Interesting idea, but I think there's a glitch. When I look at where I live and set 45mins, what I get is not fully covered by what I get for 50 mins. But if a place is within my 45min car ride, I would expect that place to be included to the 50min car ride zone. Am I missing something? Screenshot: https://postimg.cc/image/vgw9mdr6z/ https://postimg.cc/image/vgw9mdr6z/ (blue: 45mins, red: 50mins)

DanFau 8y ago
No you are not missing something, I have to improve the algorithm to avoid this kind of issue.

t27 8y ago

Really cool and fast visualization! Upvoted This might help the OP (also other readers and for reference) - It might be competing with the OPs app, but Here.com has a solution for this in one of their developer APIs(https://developer.here.com/documentation/routing/topics/request-isoline.html https://developer.here.com/documentation/routing/topics/requ...), it returns an isoline(contour) based on multiple options(max distance, max time or max fuel consumption) similar to the OPs solution

jokoon 8y ago

I would be more interested in a map that shows difficulty of access in general, like a mix of distance to a high road or fast road, if that doesn't already exist. It sounds more relevant because you don't need a starting point.

beemeetoo 8y ago

Cool idea, could be useful.... I did see some real estate sites using something similar to show/estimate the commute. When I looked in my area, it looked semi-accuraete, but far from reliable when I compared to google maps: https://s22.postimg.cc/lxfvu3ag1/How_far_can_I_go_-_Oalley_fr.png https://s22.postimg.cc/lxfvu3ag1/How_far_can_I_go_-_Oalley_f...

DanFau 8y ago
Thanks for the great feedback. I will try to find a solution

dcision 8y ago

I like using WalkScore for this. It's designed for finding apartments, but it can give travel times by walking, transit, driving, and biking, accounting for things like where transit stops are, highway exits, rush hour traffic, etc. https://www.walkscore.com/apartments/search/Washington-DC https://www.walkscore.com/apartments/search/Washington-DC

deminature 8y ago

Cool idea, but it's quoting 15 minutes to get from Brooklyn, NY to New Jersey cross-town via Manhattan, while the time quoted via Google Maps including traffic conditions is approximately 1hr, which sounds more reasonable. Would be good to integrate some kind of traffic awareness to get more accurate estimates. Excited to see how this develops.

ericcholis 8y ago
I'm noticing something similar for Buffalo, NY. It would appear to estimate driving time based on distance to nearest highway and then highway to destination. Typical traffic times don't seem to come into play at all.

spreeker 8y ago

https://mapitout.iamsterdam.com/# https://mapitout.iamsterdam.com/# deployed 2 days ago by the api.data.amsterdam.nl team.

kerbalspacepro 8y ago

It looks really pretty, but at least here in the Midatlantic, it ignores traffic by A LOT.

amerkhalid 8y ago

This is really awesome. A few years ago, my friends would argue about the a good spot for everyone to meet at. Idea for another project: (I tried it too but gave up quickly) Since now my friends are all over the US and the world, we argue about the best city to meet at. It would be awesome if there is a website that takes your and your friend’s budget, current city, and visa requirements and figure out the best place to fly to for everyone. Of course, this will be easy to monetize if you can get referral commission from airlines and hotels.

space_fountain 8y ago

This is really cool. I'd written some code to do roughly this in c++ awhile back based on data from Open Street Maps but I gave up when I realized there wasn't good data on speeds in that dataset.

sizzzzlerz 8y ago

Needs work. A drive I would make from my bay area home to my parents home in the San Joaquin Valley in 3-1/2 hours. After increasing the travel time, the map still shows me short of my destinations after 8 hours. Nice idea though.

ggggtez 8y ago

FYI: All shared maps are trivially enumerable. Probably don't use your home address. https://oalley.net/map/b4x https://oalley.net/map/b4x https://oalley.net/map/b4y https://oalley.net/map/b4y https://oalley.net/map/b4z https://oalley.net/map/b4z

alonmower 8y ago
Is there really risk here? The existence of one's address is pretty public
- theobon 8y ago
  The existence of an address is public. The relationship between an address and a hacker news account is typically not public. Providing this link can make doxxing significantly easier.
  - JimDabell 8y ago
    Sure, but the maps being enumerable doesn't reveal a relationship between an address and a specific Hacker News account. The maps being enumerable doesn't seem to be noteworthy.
    - Kiro 8y ago
      Let's say you write that you are from Seattle in your profile and post a comment immediately after. Someone could check the recent maps that start in Seattle.
kwhitefoot 8y ago
> don't use your home address. Why not? Addresses are public information anyway.
barrkel 8y ago
Every home has somebody living there. Unless you can connect it to an identity, and have a particular reason to target that identity, it's not much of a reveal.

jfries 8y ago

This is fantastic and there is great potential, but would be better with better accuracy on driving time, and also public transportation times worldwide. Also an important input is commute start times for each entered address (in case spouses start their work day different times). The above are all acailable through the Google Maps API. I would happily pay $10 or more for an accurate customized commute map. The rational value is likely way higher for families looking for an area to buy in which good commute times for all.

JamesUtah07 8y ago

Very cool. Doesn't work well in chicago for short distances (less than 1 hour) but I could see myself using this a lot for planning like a weekend trip. I would love to know the algorithm for this. It seems very fast and mostly accurate

djwinter 8y ago

I thought the IP based geolocation was creepy accurate. Looks like just a coincidence: I arrived in Toulouse 3 hours ago!

a_lieb 8y ago

Very neat. Seems quite accurate for my area. The least accurate example I found was a spot that takes 25 minutes listed as taking 35 (confirmed on Google Maps). Topographic barriers and traffic seem to be the big problems for other posters, and neither are a huge factor in my part of Western Mass.

zjaffee 8y ago

From my perspective it looks like it doesn't account for traffic, is that generally the case or is it just because I'm using it at 11am PST on west coast locations?

cascom 8y ago
totally agree - perhaps it should should just have two "blobs" one for best case and another for worst cast traffic wise...

kroltan 8y ago

Would be interesting to run a ton of queries in a gridlike fashion, and use the resulting polygons' areas to graph a map of mobility.

DanFau 8y ago
What is a mobility map ?
- kroltan 8y ago
  I don't know, I guess I could tautologically define it as a map that shows how far you can get from every point in a given timeframe. Sort of a "heatmap" of distance. That way you could discover the most "well-connected" locations within a city, and even potentially use that data for urban planning.

taurath 8y ago

Really interesting - though it seems a bit innacurate for my location (Seattle, WA). https://imgur.com/a/FqtCTBj https://imgur.com/a/FqtCTBj ^ It shows that about the furthest I can go in 2 hours (east) is Tanner, WA, while in reality I can go about twice that distance and do frequently, nearly all the way to Ellensberg. The north/south part looks correct.

legojoey17 8y ago

This is awesome! I did a similar thing and built isochronic maps while at a start-up for business intelligence back in 2014. I'm curious how you got the going, data processing and all. When I'd done it I set up all roads and continents in OSM but it took quite a bit of work to do so. I'd used Osmium to import everything into postgres and set it up to using pgrouting. It took quite a bit of work but with a lot of query mangling it had a lot of traversal cost variates (street type, population, daytime pop) it had pretty good approximations of Google! The most awful part was trying to set up the data to be usable, quick, and deal with large queries (set it up for a maximum 150km without issue), but it was a great challenge!

aj7 8y ago

I give it my old address in Sunnyvale and it persists in sticking me in Kansas.

swozey 8y ago

This is awesome, I've been wanting something like this for road trips. Please make it more than 8 hours, though. I can barely get out of Texas..

DanFau 8y ago
I did not think of that issue. What would be a good max trip time for you ?

JoblessWonder 8y ago

Hey DanFau, if you are interested in creating some viral marketing... you can update/fix this popular map of the closest baseball stadium to any location in the United States: https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/7zil08/map_of_the_us_showing_the_closest_mlb_team_by/ https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/7zil08/map_of_the...

DanFau 8y ago
Good Idea for doing viral marketing :)

drumttocs8 8y ago

Doesn't Zillow have a similar tool to filter for properties within a given commute? You type in your work address and, say, 45 minute commute, and it redraws the bounds. Pretty cool tool.

satsuma 8y ago

this map does not like michigan, at all: https://oalley.net/map/ba2 https://oalley.net/map/ba2 specifically the upper peninsula. it looks like it doesn't have enough data as you go towards the rural north, which doesn't shock me at all, and extrapolates from that.

DanFau 8y ago
Thanks for the feedback I will try to improve it with your example.

oldstrangers 8y ago

I like this, but I really want something for flight times. I'm always curious just where I could get to for a weekend trip and a 6-8 hour flight.

DanFau 8y ago
Great idea of a feature to be added. But I am not sure flight data are easy to get.

retsci 8y ago

We have developed a similar tool here: https://drivetimemapper.com/ https://drivetimemapper.com/ We're turning on a free user account for people to try out: User: testuser@drivetimemapper.com Password: drivetimemaps It was a side project for us that we thought was cool enough to be a standalone product.

sohhh 8y ago
That works!

zone411 8y ago

My company created something quite similar a few years ago. We also have a tool http://www.city-data.com/MeetingPlace/ http://www.city-data.com/MeetingPlace/ that allows you to find an optimized meeting place for two or more people based on the chosen mode of transportation (car, bike, foot).

bodyloss 8y ago
I've been looking for a tool like this for ages! Are there plans to support the UK? All that happens is I get the "Something went wrong" message currently.
- zone411 8y ago
  Thanks for the input! I'll look into this.

TimTheTinker 8y ago

This is almost identical to a drive-time site buffer in Esri Business Analyst (I’m a dev on that team). The next step is to create reports and infographics based on demographic data. Screenshot: https://pasteboard.co/HxvXrzN.png https://pasteboard.co/HxvXrzN.png

retsci 8y ago
Our product utilizes this in a web based platform with reports/demographics available: https://drivetimemapper.com/ https://drivetimemapper.com/ Free demo!
- TimTheTinker 8y ago
  Wait, so you guys provide a service that piggybacks on ArcGIS Online’s Geoenrichmemt services? Wow.
  - retsci 8y ago
    Basically, yes. For our day jobs we build predictive models that depend on dynamic spatial data pulls via the geoenrichment tool in various forms. Happy to discuss in more detail if interested.jonathan 'dot' wilson /at/ retailscientifics 'dot' com.

foota 8y ago

I think this may be modeling the map as distance per radian, which doesn't really work.

camikazeg 8y ago

I've used a service from Free Map Tools for years that did this exact same thing. It was very accurate, but appears to have recently been taken down. https://www.freemaptools.com/how-far-can-i-travel.htm https://www.freemaptools.com/how-far-can-i-travel.htm

nemoniac 8y ago

I really wanted to like this but the site is totally unusable. Damn shame.

DanFau 8y ago
Sorry we get lots of traffic and the server was not able to handle it well. As HN news wave has passed the site is more stable now :)

bhasi 8y ago

Hey man, nice app! I showed this to my friends, and then discovered that flights are currently not supported. Could you please support flight times as well? That would be killer. Thanks in advance.

DanFau 8y ago
I will think about it, I need to get data but that would be awesome.

sreggiani 8y ago

Putain ça vient de Toulouse con!

DanFau 8y ago
Et oui :)