One rather odd thing about Google Maps and other such route planning apps is that they don’t really take into account that I might own a car and yet not want to drive it all the way to my destination.

The assumption is that you either have a car, and drive it everywhere, or you do not, and you use public transport everywhere. A journey combining a car with public transport is not on the table.

Some months ago I went to a conference in Katowice and only my prior knowledge of local transport network allowed me to find an optimal route. Every app offered me one of these choices:

• Drive for 45 minutes directly to my destination - and implicitly spend another 15 looking for a spot to leave my car, and pay through the nose for parking.

• Spend just under 2 hours travelling by bus and train.

The better route, as far as I could tell, was to drive ten minutes to a rural train station, park for free by the road, take a 40-minute train, and walk the remaining five minutes to the conference centre.

The car handled the part cars are good at. The train handled the part that trains are good at. Total journey time was about 55 minutes.

This is not an unusual way to travel, especially in Europe. Yet route planners seem to assume that choosing a mode of transport means pledging allegiance to it for the entire journey.

Which is odd: we are investing heavily into park&ride facilities, but what are they good for if they aren’t easily discoverable as route options?

(Originally published on LinkedIn and Twitter)