Trip Planner Help

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To plan a trip, enter an origin and destination (labelled 'From' and 'To').

The 'From' and 'To' fields may be used in several ways:

Enter a train station name, ferry wharf, or stop name (if known), or
Enter the street number, street name and suburb (eg: 6 Main St Smithfield), or
Enter a street name and suburb (eg Main St Smithfield), or
Enter a suburb name only (This is not as precise as the options above)
Enter a street intersection, for example, George Market. (This is helpful if you are not sure of the suburb, which you may leave out).
Enter a Landmark name in the Suburb field, eg Hornsby Westfield or State Library. (This is helpful where the system is unable to locate your street name (eg for a very new street).

Selecting Address, Station/Stop, or Landmark

The 'All' option will find matching stops, addresses or landmarks. To be more precise, you can select either Station/Stop, or Address, or Landmark only.

Departure or Arrival Options

Departing 'Today' is the default option. Alternatively, choose the day of travel from the dropdown list.

The time of travel is the current time, to the nearest 5 minutes, by default. To change this, select the hours and minutes from the dropdown list. The time uses a 12 hour clock, so select am or pm.

Select 'Leave After' to produce trip options commencing later than the time displayed.

Select 'Arrive Before' to produce trip options that will get you to your destination before the time displayed.

Go

To plan a trip, click the 'Go' button.

Helpful Hints:

All train stations and wharves are found by an exact match without the need to enter the word 'station' or 'wharf' (eg Central or Manly).
If a house number is not found, the system will respond with a list of street intersections.
If the streets are near a suburb boundary, it may be better not to include a suburb name, eg Eddy Ave (near Central station) is in Haymarket and not Sydney.
Landmarks in the system include many hospitals, shopping centres, cemeteries, schools, places of worship, Shell and BP service stations and McDonalds restaurants.

More Trip Planning Options

Transport Mode:

You can select any combination of transport service by ticking the checkboxes against the mode options. Examples include Train only (not Buses) or Bus and Ferry only, or STA School Buses only.

NightRide services and Trackwork buses are found in the category 'Regular Buses'.

Walk Speed:

Walking speed can be selected from the options: Slow, Normal or Fast. Slow walking will give you more time to reach a stop or destination.

Trip Preferences:

The trip planner lets you select from Shortest Travel Time, Trips with the Least Service Changes, or Trips with the Least Walking.

The 'Shortest Travel Time' option will give you the earliest arrival, but may include one or more service interchanges.

If you select 'Least Service Changes', the trip planner will try to reduce interchanges at the expense of travel time.

Least Walking will try to reduce walking to a minimum, but this will depend on the availability of nearby public transport services.

Mobility Requirements:

The Mobility Requirements option allows you to limit trip options to those that are easy access/wheelchair accessible. Check this option for bus services that use low-floor buses (with accessible ramps) and/or train stations and ferry wharves that have lifts or accessible ramps.

My favourite:

By checking this feature whilst doing a trip plan, the information you entered will automatically be remembered next time. All you'll have to do is enter the date and time and then click 'Go'.

Trip Confirmation

If there are multiple departure or destinations points that match your input, the Trip Planner Confirmation screen will provide a list of the nearest matches. The various options are sorted with the best match at the top. Scroll up and down to find the best option matching your journey.

Bus stops, ferry wharves and train stations are labelled with (Location).

Landmarks are labelled with (Landmark).

If the confirmation options offered do not match your travel needs, you can click 'Amend Trip' to return to the entry screen and change the entered text.

Select the required address, stop or landmark, then click 'Continue'.

Results

The Trip Planner Results page confirms the information that you entered, then lists a summary of at least 5 trip options produced by the trip planner.

The first option is always the nearest match to the information you entered. The second option is the following service or the next best match.

Click on 'View Trip' to jump down the page to the detailed itinerary for that option. This lists the detail of each walk leg or public transport service. Information provided includes departure and arrival time, route number or name, operator name, station name and platform, or stop name and stand, and walking distance for each leg.

Use the Print icon at the top of the page to print the page.

Use the Envelope icon at the top of the page to email the trip plan to yourself or a friend.

Results Map

The Trip Planner Result Map page shows a map for the entire trip or the trip leg or stop that you have selected from the Trip Results.

You can Zoom in and out for more or less detail. By Zooming in, more street names will appear. The closest Zoom levels will also display the locations of ticket sellers.

The arrows and navigation buttons in the top left hand corner of the map allow you to:

Click the arrows to move north, south, east or west respectively.
Click on the + to Zoom IN on the map, click on the – to Zoom OUT. Remember to centre the map to the area where you want to Zoom in.
Between the + and – buttons, you can click on the scale to go to one of the 10 zoom levels available.

There is also a keymap in the bottom right corner of the map. The box on this keymap shows the area being displayed on the main map.