Explor­ing unknown cities for busi­ness or plea­sure, for me, is always a joy­ful expe­ri­ence, walk­ing around and get­ting into the city will enlighten your vision and makes you con­nect to the cul­ture. Vis­it­ing the beau­ti­ful and excit­ing ele­ments a city has to offer makes your trip an unfor­get­table visit. Get­ting infor­ma­tion on how to get around in a city is essen­tial for easy ori­en­ta­tion and navigation.

Actu­ally one of the most impor­tant fac­tors that you will remem­ber after vis­it­ing a city is how did you get around.

What items did you use to nav­i­gate through a city? How did pub­lic trans­port inter­acts with the nav­i­ga­tion pos­si­bil­i­ties that you have? What was your feel­ing and with the items you used to nav­i­gate and did you find your way? Where did you get your infor­ma­tion from and was it suf­fi­cient enough?

All of these ques­tions make or break a your vision on city exploration.

Explor­ing a unknown city

When vis­it­ing a city there are dif­fer­ent ways you can get there and after arriv­ing you need to know where you are in the spa­tial envi­ron­ment in order to locate your­self and make deci­sions on where to go next. The pro­vided infor­ma­tion at that point of entry is crit­i­cal for easy city explo­ration, if the pro­vided infor­ma­tion is insuf­fi­cient, you might turn the wrong way and not find­ing the loca­tions you want or need to visit. Going the wrong way increases feel­ings of dis­ori­en­ta­tion, dis­trac­tion and anx­i­ety. The feel­ing that you are loos­ing time on explor­ing a city trip is one of the worst psy­cho­log­i­cal emo­tions you experience.

City infor­ma­tion

When vis­it­ing a new city is can be use­ful to check the cities web­site and obtain infor­ma­tion about:

• Pub­lic trans­port and avail­able con­nec­tions between the var­i­ous trans­porta­tion services
• Get­ting a map of the city and locate your hotel, maybe even plan a trip from your city point to entry to the hotel
• Maybe plan your trip via google maps and mark all the points your want to visit
• Open­ing hours of the facil­i­ties you want to visit

I’m that kind of guy that doesn’t do any of the sug­gested items as described above… I just try to explore the city using my senses and try­ing to find where I need to go next. Some­times this is a great and joy­ful expe­ri­ence, some­times it causes dis­ori­en­ta­tion and argu­ments with the peo­ple I travel with at that time.

Ori­en­ta­tion and nav­i­ga­tion in an unknown city

When using your senses to guide your­self in a unknown envi­ron­ment you need eye-level direc­tional infor­ma­tion and pos­si­bly a map to locate and nav­i­gate through the city. City often uses direc­tional signs on streets to point you in the right direc­tion and some­times infor­ma­tion pan­els are pro­vid­ing you with an ori­en­ta­tion overview. In future posts I will go deeper into pedes­trian nav­i­ga­tion and city wayfind­ing. Other forms of nav­i­ga­tion is through a mobile phone pow­ered with for instance Google Maps or spe­cific appli­ca­tions enhanced to bring you infor­ma­tion about the city you want to visit.

City mar­ket­ing and vis­i­tors information

As city mar­ket­ing is the nr. 1 way of pro­mot­ing your city, pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion to the vis­i­tors is also part of the brand­ing strat­egy. Cur­rently many cities world­wide are pro­duc­ing mobile appli­ca­tions to improve the vis­i­tors expe­ri­ence and this will make it eas­ier to nav­i­gate through a city. I have com­piled a list of iPhone appli­ca­tions which will let you nav­i­ga­tion through a city using your own per­sonal map.

iPhone apps for city ori­en­ta­tion and navigation

Walk­Brighton

The Lon­don based infor­ma­tion design com­pany Applied Infor­ma­tion Group started a project in Lon­don sev­eral years ago names: Leg­i­ble Lon­don, this project aimed at pedes­trian wayfind­ing in the heart of Lon­don to release the stress on pub­lic trans­port and enhance the user expe­ri­ence. AIG rolled out a pilot and the case is very strong, peo­ple are using it with ease and it will change the way at city wayfind­ing completely.

In Brighton AIG also adapted the wayfind­ing sys­tem and devel­oped an iPhone appli­ca­tion to sup­port the pedes­trian wayfind­ing sys­tem, named Walk­Brighton. Using the same look and feel as the hard­ware allow­ing the two sys­tems works seam­lessly together inform­ing you where you are and where you want to go. Look­ing for­ward vis­it­ing Brighton to use the sys­tem in real life.

Details of the appli­ca­tion:
Cross­ings, rail­ings, ramps and foot­paths are shown in detail, as well as indi­vid­ual shops, bars and pub­lic ser­vices. 3D illus­tra­tions of key land­marks help you place your­self in the map just one of many fea­tures that makes this one of the best-looking and most user-friendly maps you will see on the iPhone

Addi­tional information:

• Applied infor­ma­tion Group
• Visit Brighton website
• Walk­Brighton website
• Install iPhone app Walk­Brighton (iTunes link)

Infomaps Ams­ter­dam

The city of Ams­ter­dam has much to explore but get­ting around in a cir­cu­lar city can be hard. This appli­ca­tion from Infomaps changes the way you can inter­act in pub­lic trans­port, pro­vid­ing you with the up-to-date infor­ma­tion about

The appli­ca­tion comes in two ver­sions:
Infomaps Ams­ter­dam:Tourist guide with 130 hotspots linked to pub­lic Tram-, Metro– and Rail­way con­nec­tions
Metro Ams­ter­dam: Travel fast and easy with Metro Ams­ter­dam. With a cus­tom made map and list view of all 4 Metro lines

Addi­tional information:

• Web­site of infomaps
• Install iPhone app infomaps (iTunes link)

Hol­land, Amsterdam

The Ams­ter­dam Mobile Guide pro­vides users with strik­ing images and accu­rate descrip­tions of Amsterdam’s most pop­u­lar attrac­tions, includ­ing restau­rants and bars, sights, hotels, shops and much more. Com­piled with the on-the-go trav­eler in mind, the Ams­ter­dam Mobile Guide high­lights the very best Ams­ter­dam has to offer, help­ing trav­el­ers dis­cover local favorites while allow­ing trav­el­ers to con­tact any venue by phone, email or web­site — or launch a Google map — directly from the application.

Find the best venues to enjoy on your trip to Ams­ter­dam and read about them on-the-go. Each entry in the Ams­ter­dam Mobile Guide includes a strik­ing image, accu­rate descrip­tion, con­tact infor­ma­tion, and a map. Call, email, or browse the venue’s web­site directly from the app. Or launch the Google Maps appli­ca­tion from the venue page to receive direc­tions from your cur­rent location.

Addi­tional information:

• Off­i­cal web­site with infor­ma­tion about the iPhone app
• Install this iPhone app (iTunes link)
• License: Free

OffMaps

OffMaps is an iPhone appli­ca­tion that you can use for nav­i­ga­tion through a city, you can down­load maps of area’s you are going to and use the maps with­out a wifi con­nec­tion. The lat­est ver­sion also includes routes, you can set up direc­tions before vis­it­ing the area and use the route as you go.

OffMaps uses Open­StreetMaps that include a lot more infor­ma­tion than sim­ple road maps: from ATMs and train sta­tions to restau­rants and pubs.

Addi­tional information:

• Web­site OffMaps
• Install iPhone app OffMaps (iTunes link)

Near­est Tube New York

Near­est Tube is one of the first aug­mented real­ity iPhone apps avail­able. The app is basi­cally of a sim­ple con­cept, point your iPhone into the envi­ron­ment and the app will show you where the near­est tube sta­tion. Avail­able for many cities such as New York, Lon­don, Barcelona, San Fran­sisco, Chicago, Madrid, Paris, Tokyo and many more. Check the web­site of Acros­sair for more information.

Addi­tional information:

• Web­site of Acrossair
• Lon­don tube map
• Install this iPhone app (iTunes link)
• * iPhone 3GS only

Lon­don Tube (subway)

Lon­don Tube is a com­pre­hen­sive guide to trav­el­ling through Lon­don. It includes offi­cial sub­way maps. Lon­don Tube map is licensed by Pres­selite from Trans­port for Lon­don (TfL).

The iPhone app includes many fea­tures such as travel plan­ning, detailed maps of almost every lines avail­able, push noti­fi­ca­tions for real time Tube alerts, book­mark man­ager and much more. Check the web­site for spe­cific details of the city wayfind­ing iPhone app.

Addi­tional details:

• Offi­cial web­site for Lon­don Tube iPhone app
• Web­site of Pres­selite for other city iPhone apps, for Berlin, NYC, Tokyo and more.
• Install Lon­don Tube iPhone app (iTunes link)

Var­i­ous other sup­pli­ers for travel, ori­en­ta­tion city maps

There are sev­eral iPhone app avail­able for sim­ple ori­en­ta­tion and nav­i­ga­tion for many cities world­wide, please check the fol­low­ing web­sites for more information:

• Smart Maps
• Visual IT
• Ulmon
• Not for tourists iPhone
• Fidesreef
• Mobile streetsmaps

Con­clu­sion

I have installed and tested many of the above men­tioned iPhone apps for city wayfind­ing and I believe the real added value is real time walk­ing around where the iPhone app shows you where you are and where you are going to. My per­sonal favorite is Walk­Brighton for its clear and straight­for­ward map design, it offers both in func­tion­al­ity and nav­i­ga­tion great results.

Future of city wayfinding

So tell me…
Do you use or will you use these apps to travel around in a city?
Will mobile appli­ca­tions be the future of city exploration?