The fact that the bus maps section of the TfL website has had a bit of
a shuffle around got an oblique mention in the "Amfibus" thread,
however the innovation which is at the root of that shuffle around
didn't specifically get flagged up.

TfL now have a new Google Maps based system on their website that can
show London bus routes overlaid on the street map - best way to
comprehend it is to check it out for yourselves he
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/gettingaround/maps/buses/

I think I'm perhaps a bit of a Luddite as I've never been mad keen on
the Google Maps style - I prefer an information packed A-Z style of
mapping myself (for urban usage at least) - but getting over my
misgivings, I found this new system quite interesting. It is perhaps
a bit more complex than first meets the eye - e.g. click on a bus map
and it shows you all the buses that stop there, plus there are direct
links to take you to the journey planner system, and an option to
"Search for routes near here".

My normal modus operandi w.r.t. bus journeys in less familiar terrain
is to look at the relevant bus spider maps, at least as my jumping off
point, though I might well end up cross-referencing a street map too.
However next time I'll try and remember to give this a go when
planning a journey.

~ ~ ~

One other thought, rather going off on something of a tangent -
Google, as we know, loves collating information about users of its
services, and is a bit murky about just what it does with it and how
it uses it - though ultimately it's all about the money, in the sense
that they use the data to deliver more targeted advertising to users.
(One can of course mitigate against giving them too much info by not
surfing and searching in whilst logged into a Google account, not
using Gmail, deleting cookies etc.) What I'm thinking is that when a
website - any website, not just the TfL website - uses an embedded
Google Map, then I presume this provides Google with another
opportunity to get more detailed information that user (as the Google
Map element will access Google's cookie which provides for a unique
user ID).

I should add that whilst this might make me sounds like I have some
paranoiac fear of Google as Big Brother, I don't! (I'm posting via
Google Groups for a start!) However I do think one can have some
awareness and indeed legitimate wariness of how information you
provide on the internet can be quietly tied together so as to provide
a fuller picture about you as an individual. Anyway, point of all this
being that I'm just wondering whether TfL should be flagging up the
third party privacy issues that might arise from them Google Maps into
their website, especially on a mainstream high-trafficked 'customer
facing' part of it. And I suppose this this goes for any website that
incorporates Google Maps somehow - not just TfL.

AFAICS there's no mention of Google in the TfL website 'small print'
he
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/termsandconditions/11466.aspx

Of course I might have it all wrong - though a quick test shows
visiting the above TfL bus map page does place a Google cookie (in
addition to to a TfL cookie) in a browser's cache.

Additionally one might well think this doesn't matter and isn't an
issue, which is fair enough - I kinda half wonder whether it's really
something that's worth being bothered about too!