Thread: Missing niche - road trip industry!

Whether you know it or not, the great american road trip is an extremely popular thing to do especially in the summer months.

I am driving with friends to Chicago from NYC on Thursday night to attend a Navy graduation ceremony. Now every keeps asking me how much is round trip tolls, so I decided to hit google.

Did you know that there is not one single website that allows you to put your point of origin and your destination to calculate the tolls for you.

You pretty much have to be a navigational genius to figure out how much it's going to cost you, you have to go to each states website, choose which exit you enter and exit the toll road then calculate it that way.

There is an iphone app that estimates the cost of gas for crying out loud, why can't someone develop a god damn toll cost estimator? Yes I know it's alot of work, but the person who has the know how and who takes the time to make it happen, they could very well be an "overnight millionaire".

/rant

It will turn into a phone app and I don't think that you make much off apps.

Tell ash to do it

Do it! Lol.

If it's a trip you take often, it's something you could learn, but to combine all that info through out all the states would be pretty difficult.

Originally Posted by imJust

Tell ash to do it

Already did

Originally Posted by SoundEfx

It will turn into a phone app and I don't think that you make much off apps.

I'm thinking there is more money in the googleads from the potential website. Think about the people who would hop on the bandwagon, google maps, mapquest, roadtripamerica.com, etc...

I won't be surprised if google isn't already working on this, but damn, it's been missing for too long.

Originally Posted by thesammythecurse

Do it! Lol.

If it's a trip you take often, it's something you could learn, but to combine all that info through out all the states would be pretty difficult.

It can be, but it's not impossible. I know nothing about programming or web related design/data tables and whatnot. But I swear I could make something myself using the v-lookup feature in MS Excel. Yes, that would be a whole lot of work.

It is possible and you never know, google might not have thought about it.

There are two sides to consider.
One, you could warm people of how expensive it is to go to NY. Tolls alone could wipe out your savings.
Another is to make people avoid tolls. There may be some that you can't avoid, but for the most part, there should be 'back roads' or something. This though, might be frowned upon by 'some' people.

Originally Posted by SoundEfx

It is possible and you never know, google might not have thought about it.

There are two sides to consider.
One, you could warm people of how expensive it is to go to NY. Tolls alone could wipe out your savings.
Another is to make people avoid tolls. There may be some that you can't avoid, but for the most part, there should be 'back roads' or something. This though, might be frowned upon by 'some' people.

Most if not all road trip planning and map/directions sites do already have the option to "avoid toll roads". They also do warn you when a route has tolls and which portion of the route to be specific. So if they already have that information how hard could it be to just add the cost of the toll?

I didn't say that it was difficult.

There might be some stupid law that states that you can't state the toll of a city? It sounds dumb, but it might be true, hence why no one did it.

By the way, I wish I did that info when I was on my way to your place. I would have been dodging tolls like pot holes....lol...

Originally Posted by SoundEfx

I didn't say that it was difficult.

There might be some stupid law that states that you can't state the toll of a city? It sounds dumb, but it might be true, hence why no one did it.

By the way, I wish I did that info when I was on my way to your place. I would have been dodging tolls like pot holes....lol...

No there is no law that I have found restricting the posting of this information. Most if not all states that have toll roads/bridges have the information for all to view on their respective websites.

All it takes is some initiative and know how to successfully link all of the information to work seamlessly.

could be very difficult, in md they just opened rt 200 and the toll varies with how many people are using the road, very cool idea though

If you could measure the rate of traffic using the over head traffic report, the green, yellow, red or black indications, it wouldn't be hard to average what the cost might be.

Then in that case, make Ash do it. There seems to be something in there.

Originally Posted by mcfarton

could be very difficult, in md they just opened rt 200 and the toll varies with how many people are using the road, very cool idea though

Originally Posted by SoundEfx

If you could measure the rate of traffic using the over head traffic report, the green, yellow, red or black indications, it wouldn't be hard to average what the cost might be.

Then in that case, make Ash do it. There seems to be something in there.

Or the worst case scenario price could be given.