How far can we go by train from his city? You’ve probably asked yourself the question while walking or browsing the billboards at your regular station. Depending on whether you live in Quimper, Paris, Lyon or Chateauroux, the railway horizon is far from the same. To understand this in a few clicks, the Chronotrains website offers a map showing the areas accessible from French and European stations. Simply hover your mouse over a city to find out which are served within one, two, three, four or five hours, with or without a connection. This can help you choose your next week’s destination in Europe, especially since the train is just as competitive as the plane on city-to-city trips of around five hours. So for the lucky French with access to high-speed internet, it’s perfectly feasible these days to travel the thousand kilometers that separate Lille from Marseille or Bordeaux from Brussels.
Card Enthusiast
This tool was created in just one week in the middle of summer by Benjamin Tran Dinh, a programmer who recently graduated from École des Ponts.more out of a passion for cartography than an interest in trains“, he admits Figaro. “The idea came to me while looking at various maps of France in anamorphosis that showed how the TGV had reduced travel time from Paris.he continues (see sample card here).
His sources of inspiration. Essentially, it is based on the data that is available open source by the German railway company Deutsche Bahn. In terms of form, it is inspired by the German site Direkt Bahn Guru, which similarly displays all cities that are accessible without change from a given station, indicating the minimum travel time.
Working on this project allowed him to get a little more familiar with rail transport. “Looking at the map, we see the disparity in access to rail mobility between cities, how some of them are isolated, how some high-speed connections are privileged… This tells local stories and gives insight into infrastructure development. circleBenjamin Tran Dinh is watching. The founder is considering improvements to the site following the many suggestions he has received since hitting the web;Why not increase the (arbitrary) five hour limit or offer a station search engine?»
Source: Le Figaro
