Last month, at the American Public Transportation Association's TransITech conference in Anaheim, we gave a lunchtime presentation to more than two-hundred members of the transit industry. We provided an update on our progress in making the world's transit information universally accessible and useful. In the year that has passed since the last TransITech conference, we've made some amazing progress: we integrated transit information directly into Google Maps by making stations and stops visible and clickable; we started promoting transit as an alternative each time we show driving directions in an area where we have transit data; we graduated from being a stand alone Labs product into a fully-integrated feature of Google Maps (which means we will benefit from each new Google Maps feature); and most significantly, we have expanded coverage from nine agencies in the United States to more than 30 agencies spanning three continents!

We ended our presentation by challenging each agency to get up and running on Google Maps in time for Earth Day 2008 (April 22). So far, the response has been quite impressive. Two major agencies sent us initial data in GTFS format in less than a week! However, we still have a great deal of work to do to make transit information easier to find. If you'd like to see your city's transit services on Google Maps, please feel free to pass this message and the attached PDF along to the marketing and technology contacts at your agency.

Transit information in Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/help/maps/transit/