Commuting times drive property search on househunting website

The white area shows locations within a 30-minute commute of the DfT’s headquarters. Clicking on any of the blue dots will show the user the address and other details of available properties.

The white area shows locations within a 30-minute commute of the DfT’s headquarters. Clicking on any of the blue dots will show the user the address and other details of available properties.

A new website has been launched enabling people to search for a new home on the basis of commuting times by public transport. 

Users of MySociety’s Mapumental Property website type in the postcode of their workplace and then input their desired maximum commute time.

A map, which has been over four years in development (LTT 30 May 08), then reveals locations that meet the commuting time criterion. Users can then view on the website the properties available to buy or rent in the areas, using data provided by property search website Zoopla. The search can be refined by specifying features such as the minimum number of bedrooms and minimum and maximum market prices.

“We are not trying to compete with big property sites,” MySociety says. “We’ve built this site to solve a problem that other sites don’t – commuting.”

The site uses a free, open data set, the National Public Transport Data Repository, and the mapping assumes travel by the quickest combination of train, tube, tram, bus, ferry, and walking. It does not include times by car.

The website covers all of the UK apart from Northern Ireland because open public transport data for the country is not currently available.