Not too long ago I posted an entry about the adoption of the Virtual Earth platform by the New York City Transit to power their Trip Planner. The* service allows visitors and residents to get walking directions for their travel itinerary within the City and, since February, features Virtual Earth maps for a much richer visualization experience.
The NYCT recently issued the below announcement boasting the success of the easy to use site due to positive customer experience.
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Customers Appreciate Ease of Website
Trip Planner, MTA NYC Transit's online travel itinerary service surpassed a usage milestone recently, logging over 10,000 combined unique visitors to the web-based service http://tripplanner.mta.info/ and mobile service On the Go! http://tripplanner.mta.info/mobile. On an average weekday, more than 10,000 customers are planning travel itineraries through Trip Planner. The program has experienced steady growth in use since the site went live in December 2006, allowing customers to obtain travel itineraries using NYC Transit's subway and bus network, Staten Island Railway and MTA Bus.
"Trip Planner has allowed NYC Transit to expand our travel information operations to a digital platform which, in turn, has given us the ability to provide better and more relevant service to a greater number of customers than we could ever do by phone alone," said NYC Transit President Howard H. Roberts, Jr. "Customers can now plan a trip when they want - from the comfort of their home, office or even their web enabled phone or PDA using our Trip Planner mobile service On the Go! It has changed the way we do business," added Roberts.
Customer feedback regarding Trip Planner has been overwhelmingly positive, with many citing the website's ease of use, while others appreciate the three travel options provided with every itinerary request. That high level of customer satisfaction has translated into steady growth in the number of daily users. By the end of last year, more than 5,600 customers used Trip Planner during an average weekday to obtain travel itineraries for destinations within the five boroughs. As of June 19, this year's average weekday use of Trip Planner grew to 10,060, an increase of 170% over the same period in 2007, while average weekend day use grew to 7,906, an increase of 193% when compared to 2007. The use of the Trip Planner mobile service, On the Go!, has also seen steady growth from a daily average of 270 visits in October 2007 to 436 visits during June.
Recent enhancements, including the incorporation of Navteq® Map Data and Microsoft® Virtual Earth™ into Trip Planner provides users with a more realistic street grid view and helps them better visualize the walking instructions that accompany their travel itinerary use. Another recently added feature allows Trip Planner users to overlay the actual area subway routes and stations over the street grid, a feature programmed into the application by NYC Transit's Internet Technologies Group.
Additional planned upgrades to Trip Planner - due to be released by the end of the 3rd quarter of this year - include more robust service advisory information, additional trip planning tools and mapping capabilities. 
See Original Post...
07-02-2008
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