Over the last two years we’ve experimented with various ways of getting Rome2rio’s journey planning technology into the hands of users. Our web-based desktop solution is by far the most popular, with over 3 million unique users each month, and growing fast. Naturally enough — we are an online travel company, after all — we’ve also released responsive versions of the site for use on mobile platforms, and an iPhone App.
We took the App experiment a step further last year with geo-specific versions for the iPhone: the Melbourne Transport Planner, UK Transport Planner, Sydney Transport Planner and a number of others. Each of these apps functioned in exactly the same way, used exactly the same data and produced exactly the same results as their “big sister” app, Rome2rio. The difference was that they only allowed Origin and Destination entries within their geo-specific area.
Geo-specific apps like the UK Transport Planner (left) produce identical
results to the Rome2rio app (right).
results to the Rome2rio app (right).
This experiment has had mixed results: the Melbourne and UK apps were very popular, while we gained little traction with the others. That may have something to do with the fact we didn’t actively market them, that the same functionality could be had through the Rome2rio app, or that consumers looking for an in-city journey planner also wanted up to the minute arrival times for buses, trains and subways: the type of information that is delivered so well by apps like Hopstop, TramTracker, CityMapper and others.
In any event, we’ve decided to focus our efforts on our global app, Rome2rio, and plan a new release in the November timeframe. We’ve withdrawn the other apps from the Apple store. Look out for the new version of Rome2rio later this year, and check the mobile version of our web site, which also works on Android devices.