Travel distance

Travel distance draws an isochrone: the area you can reach within a given time budget or distance from a point on the map. The area follows the road network and timetables, not a circle around the point. The tool is in the right-hand tool rail. You can also start it from the map: right-click where you want to calculate from, and select Travel time analysis in the menu that appears.

The panel has three tabs:

Tab	What it answers
Area	How far can you get from the point in a given number of minutes? The area is a travel time isochrone.
Distance	How far can you get in a given number of metres or kilometres along the road? The same area, but limited by distance. Only travel modes without a timetable: Car, Walking, Cycling, Car + ferry and Cycling + ferry.
A to B	Route, travel time and distance between two points you click on the map. Drag A or B to move them.

How to use it

1. Right-click the point on the map and select Travel time analysis, or click Travel distance in the right-hand tool rail and then the point on the map. Close the property panel first if it covers the tool rail.
2. Choose a travel mode in the drop-down list: Car, Bus, Walking, Public transport, Train, Cycling, Coach (express bus), Car + ferry or Cycling + ferry. In the Norwegian interface, some of the options are currently shown in English. Car follows the speed limits, the public transport options follow the timetable, walking is calculated at 5 km/h and cycling at 20 km/h. The table under Travel modes and speed assumptions lists all nine.
3. Choose Departure (travel from here) or Arrival (arrive here by), and set the time. This decides which departures count.
4. Set Duration in hours and minutes, from one minute to four hours, or the distance on the Distance tab. The default is 15 minutes.
5. Click Update when you change something, and Reset map to start again. The A to B tab has the same Update and Reset map buttons. The plus button adds more isochrones, each with its own colour, so you can compare time budgets or travel modes on the same map. The colour dot to the left of the travel mode opens a palette of ten colours. Orange is easy to tell apart from the map.

On the A to B tab, you click A first and then B. The route is drawn on the map, and the panel shows the travel time and distance for the selected travel mode. Drag one of the points to move it. The route is recalculated straight away.

Example: Fornebu Sentrum

The example uses two isochrones from the same point: 15 minutes by car in green and 10 minutes on foot in orange.

Zoom out, and the difference becomes the point: the walking isochrone covers the Fornebu peninsula, while the car isochrone stretches across large parts of western Oslo and in towards the city centre.

Turn on map layers before you draw the isochrone, and it shows you what lies inside it. Here only the 10-minute walking isochrone is drawn, with Grocery Chains, Kindergartens, Primary Schools and Upper secondary schools turned on. Two kindergartens are inside the area, Meny and Coop Prix are just outside the boundary, and the schools on Snarøya are out of reach on foot. It is just as useful to see what ten minutes does not reach.

Travel modes and speed assumptions

The isochrone calculation uses actual road data, not a constant speed. A 15-minute car isochrone reaches further along a motorway than along a minor road with a 50 km/h speed limit.

Nine travel modes:

Travel mode	Follows	Speed
Car	The road network	The speed limit for each road segment
Bus	Bus routes only	The timetable
Walking	Walkable network	5 km/h
Public transport	All public transport combined, including changes and walking to and from stops	The timetable, 5 km/h to and from stops
Train	Train routes only	The timetable
Cycling	Cycle paths and roads open to bicycles	20 km/h on flat roads, lower uphill
Coach	Express bus between cities	The timetable
Car + ferry	The road network, with car ferries as part of the route	The speed limit and the ferry timetable
Cycling + ferry	Cycle paths and roads open to bicycles, with ferries as part of the route	20 km/h and the ferry timetable

The walking and cycling speeds are set by TravelTime, which provides the isochrone calculation, and you cannot adjust them in Placepoint. In the Norwegian interface, the last three options currently have English names. The public transport calculations are based on Entur's national timetable. Bus and Train are separate options next to Public transport, so you can answer "where can I get to by train alone" without walking and changes being mixed in.

Direction: departure or arrival

The isochrone is calculated from a time and a date, and you choose which way the time runs:

• Departure is the default: how far can I get if I travel from here at this time.
• Arrival: where do I have to start to arrive here at this time.

The choice matters most for public transport, where departures are fixed in the timetable. For car, cycling and walking, the two usually give almost the same area.

Time budget and multiple isochrones

You set the time budget in hours and minutes, with 15 minutes as the starting point. You can add several isochrones to the same map and give each its own colour, for example 5, 10 and 15 minutes from the same point, or the same time budget for car and public transport side by side. You can export the result.

When an isochrone looks unexpected

Common causes:

• Sparse road network around the starting point. A car-based isochrone is smaller than expected.
• Arrival time outside rush hour. The travel time is shorter, and the isochrone is larger.
• Public transport in the middle of the night. Services run rarely or not at all, and the isochrone is small.
• Point near a motorway with a short time budget. The isochrone is unexpectedly elongated.

If it still looks wrong, contact support with the matrikkel (property register reference) or coordinate, the configuration and the expected vs actual value.

See also

• Analysis - the market analyses in the left-hand menu and the geometric 3D tools in the same tool rail.
• Catchment area - methodology - the definitions of catchment area, isochrone and radius.
• Feasibility study - the Fornebu example in the context of the rest of the site assessment.
• Report: Demographics - who lives inside the area.
• Overview - all the tools along the right-hand edge.