The Journey Planner makes planning your travel by public transport easier by calculating and recommending journey options for you to choose from. The following hints, coupled with some experimentation and familiarisation with the site, will help you get the most out of the system.

Enter a suburb, street name, or a location of interest (wellington station, zoo, etc) for both your origin and destination, then confirm the location by using the "plan journey" function to display your options. To assist you, use the help buttons or select a map.

The Journey Planner works by looking at our database of public transport journeys in the region and displays three journeys that may meet your specific needs. You should look at each and decide which is your best option. You can review specific details of the whole or each leg of your journey, look at the whole journey on a map, or access a complete timetable of the route as a pdf. The 24 hour clock is used.  

You can change aspects of your journey to review other options (earlier or later), plan your return journey (reverse direction), select specific transport modes you prefer (train, bus, walk, etc) and plan your journey so that you arrive by a specified time.

School bus services are available using the Journey Planner. School bus services may be subject to change at short notice by the bus company therefore we recommend that you check school bus times and departure locations with the with the service operator before using a school bus service.

The Journey Planner uses very specific logic to analyse your request and present what the system calculates as your options. There are some circumstances where these options may not be your best choice.

• Journeys are optimised based on the shortest travel time. Occasionally the system may suggest you (unnecessarily) swap buses to arrive a minute or two sooner.  
• Connections between transport services (for example bus to train or vice versa) of under 5 minutes are not shown as these may not allow sufficient transfer time. The feasibility of making these connections needs to be considered. The availability of earlier or later connections can be checked on the connecting service timetable.
• The system does not allow for hills and may show a journey option with a steep uphill climb ahead of an easy downhill option.
• Fares are not shown on the Journey Planner. Fares are available from the Tickets and Fares section. 

Help to clarify your journey planning choices is available from our Metlink service centre on 0800 801 700.