In article ,
Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at
12:25:23 on Mon, 11 Sep 2006, Sam Wilson remarked:
The planner only recognises places served by trains (including LUL) and
long distance coaches, and mainly suggests travel only by these modes.

Not quite - if you travel from Edinburgh it starts at the bus station
even when the whole of the journey is by train.

Is the bus station (and hence Edinburgh) served by long distance
coaches? If so it meets my description.

Yes, but that's not the point.

Although most towns I looked at had a *choice* of Bus or Train station
(where both existed).

If you just give "edinburgh" as a starting point it chooses the bus
station. I gave it a trip to Stevenage this coming Friday, arriving at
20:00. It offered two journeys by train and two (really one) by air.
In all cases the journeys started with a walk from the bus station to
Waverley station or to Waverley Bridge where the airport buses run from
(no, they don't run from the bus station!).

Sam

In message , at
15:36:22 on Mon, 11 Sep 2006, Sam Wilson remarked:

The planner only recognises places served by trains (including LUL) and
long distance coaches, and mainly suggests travel only by these modes.

Not quite - if you travel from Edinburgh it starts at the bus station
even when the whole of the journey is by train.

Is the bus station (and hence Edinburgh) served by long distance
coaches? If so it meets my description.

Yes, but that's not the point.

Although most towns I looked at had a *choice* of Bus or Train station
(where both existed).

If you just give "edinburgh" as a starting point it chooses the bus
station.

Not really. It gives you a pick list of many places in Edinburgh, but
the bus station is just the first on the list.

This is the same as my #4 complaint: "Entering London gives London
Bridge (and a drop-down list of other places in London)". What it really
needs is the most generic "middle of $city" at the top of the pick list.

In all cases the journeys started with a walk from the bus station to
Waverley station or to Waverley Bridge where the airport buses run from
(no, they don't run from the bus station!).

It's expecting you to use the drop-down list for those starting points.
--
Roland Perry

In article ,
Roland Perry wrote:

It's expecting you to use the drop-down list for those starting points.

Ah - I see now. From the front page it's pretty obvious when the
display changes to offer you the drop down lists. I used the "show me
how to use this" button where the geometry changes much less when you
hit the search button and I was confused because there's no highlighting
of the button so I just thought I'd mi**** it. So I pressed it again
and it gave me routes from the bus station.

I guess my complaint has transmogrified into "insufficient attention to
HCI principles in user interface". :-)

Sam