Itineraries have been in use to guide travellers since the Middle Ages, adapting their form through time to the ever-changing needs of travellers. Compared to maps, using precompiled journey plans requires less cognitive effort. However, until the emergence of electronic systems, the ability to adapt them to specific plans of each individual traveller had been limited. Today, online journey planners need to cater to users' information needs in different journey stages. Wayfinding support is expected in every situation (as well as indoors) and the delivery of information needs to be suitable to explain complex multimodal journeys that correspond to modern-day travelling habits. Integrated multimodal journey planners (IMJP), such as Google Transit or Transport Direct are seen as essential in promoting public transport, and are a step forward to a better informed traveller. While successful graphic solutions have been devised to enable wayfinding using individual modes of transport, providing integrated multimodal information was a less common practice – yet alone providing dynamic personalised multimodal travel information. From the information design perspective, the design of IMJP feedback raises a series of challenges such as the provision of appropriate wayfinding support for individual modes and the display of simplified journey visualisations within a more general frame of reference. The talk aims to give an insight into these challenges through prominent examples of IMJP. As travel is always related to stress and uncertainty, it is important for travel information to be conveyed in a simple-to-understand and unambiguous manner.

1. With permission of the British Library;
system number 004976828.
Matthew Paris’ itinerary
from London to the Holy Land
(13th century)
For the image, please refer
to the British Library website;
system number 004976828.

2. Copyright National Rail,
Transport for London, Sygic.
TFL online planner
London area,
public transport
Sygic
worldwide
car and pedestrian
National Rail
nationwide
public transport
Transport for London
local
public transport

3. integrated multimodal
journey planners*
*or to keep things short multimodal planners

4. Home WorkIntermodal hubP+R

5. TFL online planner
London area,
public transport
Copyright Google.
Google Maps

6. Copyright Deutsche Bahn.
DB Reiseauskunft

7. spatial info needs
time dependency
Travellers are navigators
Travellers are passive
Time-constrained only
by their own agenda
Travellers are dependent
on timetables etc.

8. spatial info needs
time dependency
Travellers are navigators
Travellers are passive
Time-constrained only
by their own agenda
Travellers are dependent
on timetables etc.

9. Google Maps
Copyright Google.

10. Copyright Google.
Google Maps

11. Copyright Transport Direct and Google.
Transport Direct
Google Maps for iOS

12. TFL online planner
London area,
public transport
Copyright Transport Direct.
Transport Direct

13. Google Maps
Copyright Google.

14. Google Maps
Copyright Google.

15. RAA strip map
(detail)
With permission of the RAA.