Google Maps and Search updates find more economic ways to get around

When determining what’s the best route to your destination, there are more factors to consider than directions.

Google Maps typically shows the user a variety of options based on time, cost, mode of transportation, least amount of transfers and more.

On Wednesday, Google announced that Google Maps and Google Search are getting new and updated features for sustainability that will allow people to find convenient public transit and walking routes, see alternatives to air travel and better understand the estimated emissions of flights.

Maps will have a new feature that suggests alternative public transit or walking routes alongside driving routes if the travel times are comparable and practical.

The feature will be available in the coming weeks in over fifteen cities around the world, including Amsterdam, Barcelona, London, Montreal, Paris, Rome and Sydney, according to Google.

In Search, people will be able to find information on long-distance train routes, and will now support busses as well.

For example, a search for “Boston to Philadelphia train” will populate schedules and ticket prices immediately on the results page, along with links that will allow you to complete booking.

Train information on Search is now available in 38 countries, and long-distance bus routes are available in 15 countries.

Whether trains were a better alternative to planes for a travel route was not previously obvious, so Google started to roll out train route suggestions that appear when you look for flights on Search last year.

And now, in the coming months, users will be able see the train route suggestions right there on Google Flights, making it easier to find the more sustainable option no matter where your search begins.

Google Flights already allows you to see the estimated emissions for pretty much every fight, and you can filter your options by lowest emissions. With the train suggestions in the same place, one will be able to see the environmental impact of their trip and choose the most reasonable option.

The estimated emissions on Google Flights are powered by the Travel Impact Model (TIM) — a Google-based methodology published in 2022 for predicting flight emissions per passenger.

TIM estimates are also now available through a developer API to make the data more accessible to all users, whether that be through an app or website, a Google Sheets add-on and a calculator on the TIM website.