Google has long been working on promoting sustainable travel for its users. In 2021, it debuted a feature on Maps allowing travellers to sort their routes by how sustainable they are, on top of the already option of sorting by mode of transport or time of travel.
Now, it is working on promoting sustainable travel even more, with new features being rolled out in Maps, as well as in the Search engine. The new updates allow users to more easily find convenient public transport and walking routes, as alternatives to driving, see alternatives to air travel and better understand the estimated emissions of flights.
In Maps, users who select a driving route will now automatically see public transport and or walking suggestions next to driving routes, if travel times are comparable and practical, thus prompting people to consider the alternatives. The feature is first being rolled out in April and May in 15 cities around the world: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Budapest, Cologne, Dublin, Hamburg, London, Madrid, Melbourne, Milan, Montreal, Munich, Paris, Rome, Sydney and Zurich.
The Search engine will start providing information on train routes and long-distance bus routes directly on the main page. When searching something like “Boston to Philadelphia train”, users can quickly see schedules and ticket prices right on the results page, along with links to complete their booking. Moreover, when using Google Flights, users will be automatically shown train route alternatives, so they can see the more sustainable travel options available.
Seemingly a rudimentary version of what could become a Google Trains platform, similar to Google Flights, the feature is now available for trains in 38 countries (Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Türkiye, Ukraine, UK and US) and long-distance bus routes in 15 countries (Brazil, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, UK and US).
For when there is no other choice but to book a flight, Google Flights is already showing carbon emissions per passenger estimates for almost all the flights in the search results, users having the possibility of filtering these results by their emissions. The estimates are powered by the Travel Impact Model (TIM), a methodology published by Google in 2022 for predicting per-passenger flight emissions. To make the information even more accessible, TIM estimates are now also available through a developer API that allows any app or website to display flight emissions, as well as a Google Sheets add-on and a calculator on the TIM website.
