Travel Planner guide
Quick destinations
Having issues with a destination?
Some Ottawa landmarks pose a challenge for the Travel Planner. The following links will help you quickly plan a round trip to these tricky places:
Trip to landmark: | Trip from landmark: |
---|---|
Use this simple application to get customized transit information within seconds:
We are currently unable to provide Travel Plans adjusted with real-time data.
Planning a trip
Using the Travel Planner
Simply follow these 3 quick steps:
- Enter your origin and destination
- Pick the time of your trip
- Hit “Plan your trip” to get your trip plan results. Several different plans will be listed at the top of the screen. The quickest trip will usually be highlighted in yellow:
1. Entering your origin and destination
You can enter your origin and destination using one of the following methods:
- Lookup an address or landmark
- Pick location on the map
- Detect your GPS location
- Choose an address from your lookup history
Travel Tip:
If you have entered your destination in place of your origin, or if you would like to generate a return trip quickly, you can reverse the order of your entries.
Lookup an address or a landmark
- Begin typing the address or the name of the landmark
- Select the location from the generated list (see examples below)
Example of address lookup and selection | Example of landmark lookup and selection |
---|---|
The street types and landmark names are taken directly from the Google Maps database. They are entered in the language most spoken in the area where they are located, that is in English for Ontario addresses and in French for Quebec addresses.
Picking a location on the map
- Click once on the desired point on the map
- Select either “Set as origin” or “Set as destination”
Detect your GPS location (for mobile users)
If you have enabled GPS on your mobile device, you can set your origin or destination to your current location.
Choose a location you have previously looked up (Travel Planner history)
If you have previously created a travel plan using a destination or an origin, you can click the history icon (round arrow with a clock dial) to select it without looking it up again.
In order to save your history, you need to allow cookies and not be in a “private” or “incognito” window.
2. Picking the time of your trip
Times use the 24-hour clock format as opposed to “a.m.” and “p.m.” times. Enter 00:00 for midnight and 12:00 for noon.
You can plan for your trip to begin at a specific time (Depart At) or to reach your destination for a specific time (Arrive at). By default, the trip time is set to “Depart At”.
Use the drop down menus next to the hour and minutes figures to choose the time of day for your trip.
To plan a trip on another day, click on the calendar icon next to today’s date:
You can even select a date next month by clicking the right arrow next to the month:
3. Get your trip plan results: choosing the best option for you
When you generate a travel plan, you will be given many trip options. The default trip plan (highlighted in yellow) is best option for most customers.
The visual display of options lets you quickly see:
- Start time
- Walking distance
- Number of transfers,
- Route and line numbers
- Transfer periods
- Arrival time
To choose an option other than the default, click on the corresponding row.
Trip plan legend
Symbol | Meaning |
---|---|
Default or selected trip plan option. The yellow highlight and arrow means this is the trip described below. The time next to the arrow is the trip’s start time. | |
Walking segment. The width of this band indicates the relative walking distance: the narrower the band, the shorter the distance; the wider the band, the longer the walk | |
Transit route segment. The Route number is clearly indicated in the schematic. The width of the band represents the relative time aboard the bus. | |
Transfer or layover time. The width of the band represents the relative time waiting to transfer between routes. | |
Trip start/Arrival times. The time on the left is the start time of your trip. (When you leave your origin), while the time on the right is the time you should reach your destination under normal traffic conditions. |
Travel Plan notes
On some Travel Plans, you may find yellow triangle containing a letter next to a route or bus stop. Please click this icon because it provides important information about that portion of your travel plan, such as whether a route is on detour, if your bus has a destination other than the route’s main destination (so you know what to look for at the front of the bus). See example below:
Print your Travel Plan
Your Travel Plan is available in a printer-friendly version. Simply click on the printer icon on the top right corner of the plan description.
Get earlier or later trip plans
You can check earlier and later trip options by clicking the buttons above and below your trip plan results.
Advanced Travel Planner options (Service options)
Use the Travel Planner’s Service Options to customize your trip even more:
- Filter by vehicle type (bus or train) — If you would prefer to not use a vehicle type, click its icon to uncheck it
- Filter out school routes (600s) or special event routes (400s and 450s) — Click to uncheck
- Exclude STO routes — Click to uncheck
- Use only buses with a bike rack — Click to select (Available only during Rack & Roll season, from spring to fall)
Using the map interface
Action | Description | Example |
---|---|---|
Zoom | You can zoom in on the map by clicking the appropriate icon (“+” to zoom in and “-“ to zoom out) located on the bottom right corner of the window | |
Move the map | To display a different area on the map:
|
|
Check out your stop with Google Street View |
Zoom into the nearest intersection Click on the yellow person icon and while holding down the mouse button, drag the icon the desired point (must be on a public roadway) |
|
Expand map to full screen | For easier navigation, you can expand the map to take up your entire screen by clicking the red icon with two arrows. To return to the Travel planner interface, click the icon again. | |
Aerial view | You can view an area’s satellite images by clicking the “Satellite” button. This will only change the presentation and not the functionality of the map. |
Travel Planner icons
Icon | Function |
---|---|
Display the OC Transpo website main menu | |
Display major Travel Planner functions: Trip Planner, Route Schedules, Stop Schedules, Next Departures | |
Launch the calendar date picker to enter a date | |
Detect your GPS location | |
Access your route or location lookup history | |
Switch the language of the application to French | |
Expand the map to full screen | |
Displays earlier (up arrow) or later (down arrow) trips in a route schedule | |
Print schedule or travel plan | |
Scroll up to the top of the window | |
Show a service notification related to a route, stop or trip | |
Select a trip to display on map | |
Reverse origin and destination entries |
Other Travel Planner features
Route schedules
Create your own route timetable:
1. Choose the date
Schedules vary day-by-day depending on daily ridership (weekdays, Saturdays or Sundays) and planned events. You need to specify the day to get an accurate schedule.
Today’s date is already entered by for you. If you would like a route schedule for another day, use the calendar to pick the date.
2. Pick your route
To choose the route for your schedule, start typing your route number in the “Select a route:” box, then click on the suggestion with the desired route number and direction (see example below). Only routes scheduled to run on the selected day appear in the list of suggested routes.
Instead of typing in your route number, you can browse the full list of routes scheduled to run on the selected day by clicking the down arrow in the “Select a route:” box:
Route history
Once you look up a route’s timetable, the route number and direction are saved in your history and can be called up quickly by clicking the history icon.
In order to save your history, you need to allow cookies and make sure you are not in a “private” or “incognito” window.
3. Viewing your schedule
When you have set the date and chosen a route, click on to generate your schedule.
Departures are based on scheduled times. The Travel Planner is currently unable to give departure times adjusted with real-time (GPS) data. For real-time departures, please text your stop number to 560560, call 613-560-1000 or download a transit app.
By default, every stop served by a route will be included in the schedule. Because most routes serve too many stops to fit on the screen (or to print – but you can Create a custom printable schedule), you will need to scroll right to display the passing times at later stops.
Route schedule icons
Icon | Action |
---|---|
Select the trip you would like to show on map. Once you have chosen your trip, click “View selected trip in map” above the schedule. | |
Show earlier (up) or later (down) trips | |
Click to view a service notice related to a stop or trip. This may be a trip-specific destination, a routing detour or a caution order. | |
Print your schedule |
4. Create a custom printable schedule
- Choose your stops
- Click on "Show selected stops"
Choosing your stops
To select a stop, click on the stop name and number cell at the top of the schedule (see example below).
To show and select stops later along the route, click the right arrow on the scroll bar under the passing times.
Stop schedules
Use this feature to get the schedules of any route serving your stop on the chosen day:
- Pick the date
- Select the stop
- Choose your route
Selecting a stop
You can look up a stop using any of the following:
- Enter a stop number or station name and click on the corresponding suggestion
- Some stop numbers are also street address numbers so the stop will not necessarily appear first in the list; if this is the case, simply scroll down the list until you find it.
- Pick a location on the map and search for nearby stops
- Enter an address and lookup nearby stops
- Detect your location (for GPS-enabled mobile device users)
- Choose a stop in your history (stop history icon only shows up if you have previously looked up a stop)
- In order to save your history, you need to allow cookies and make sure you are not in a “private” or “incognito” window.
Choosing your route
If more than one route serves your stop, you need to choose the route for your schedule. Click the small downward arrow next to the route name and number shown to expand the list of routes (see below).
Routes are ordered by number (from smallest to largest).
Only routes that run on the chosen day appear in the list.
Once you have chosen your route, the schedule will appear. The schedule is broken down by time of day, defaulting to the current time period. To view later or earlier trips, please click on the appropriate period, Morning, Afternoon or Evening.
Schedule notes
If you see the yellow triangle icon next to the times for your trip, click on one for important service-related notices such as a different trip destination, or detour or routing info.
Next departures
Use this convenient tool to find the next passing times at your stop or station for any (all) routes or for selected routes.
- Select your stop
- Click on “Next Departures”
- Get departures for only the routes you choose (optional)
Selecting a stop
You can look up a stop using any of the following:
- Enter a stop number or station name and click on the corresponding suggestion
- Some stop numbers are also street address numbers so the stop will not necessarily appear first in the list; if this is the case, simply scroll down the list until you find it.
- Pick a location on the map and search for nearby stops
- Enter an address and lookup nearby stops
- Detect your location (for GPS-enabled mobile device users)
- Choose a stop in your history (stop history icon only shows up if you have previously looked up a stop)
- In order to save your history, you need to allow cookies. You cannot be in a “private” or “incognito” session either.
Get departures for specific routes serving a stop
You can narrow your results to show the next departures for only the routes you want (for example, only routes heading downtown):
- From your “next departure” results screen, click on the downward arrow next to “All routes” to view the routes serving the selected stop.
- Click the checkbox next to “All routes” to deselect it. Check the boxes for routes you want to include, then collapse the list of routes by pressing the up-arrow icon to view passing times: