Generate more foot traffic by using Google Directions API

About 60% of people who calculate a direction to a store will visit the store in the coming hours and days. Directions is a great proxy to measure if clients actually will go to a location.Direction offers various travel modes: driving, walking, biking and transit. At maplicate we offer several ways to calculate the optimal route for a given departure date. You can choose between immediate departure and a time you can choose on a slider or in a drop down menu.

Public transport
Public transportation is called transit at Google. You can include departure and arrival times into your calculations. Giving you the option to offer the same features as Google Consumer Maps.
You can even choose your planned departure date and get the best public transport option available at that time. In the given example you see a transit route. In blue you see the distance in walking mode. In black the suggestion for tramway line 7. Google shows the correct icon and the number of stops.

Driving
Driving is the default setting set by Google. Depending on time of day Direction API will calculate the route and estimated time of arrival based on current or future projects traffic conditions. Depending on the location of the store it can make sense to change to a different mode of transportation. For example if the location is in a pedestrian area or you want to encourage your clients to take public transport.

Walking
Walking helps clients find their way in city center locations. Usually it makes sense to offer walking mode as default if the person searching for the location is in walking distance. Depending on culture and circumstances people should not walk more than ten minutes.

Biking
Biking is becoming more and more popular. Biking can be a great addition if it is too far to walk.

To make the journey for your clients most convenient you can show the means of transport that takes the shortest time. And you can add a link to free Google Maps or Waze navigation.