Plan your trips online

Online route planners are often not quite all they are cracked up to be, but the new offering from the Department for Transport looks to have bucked the trend.

The £17m project is designed to bring together travel information nation wide and present it in one place. It’ll let you find your route, see what the traffic is like along each section, find a alternative route or compare the road journey with other options like using the train.

Unlike a lot of other route planners the directions are clear and you can get detailed maps for everything, whether you are walking, riding or on the train.

If you register you can save favourite journeys so you can instantly check the traffic along your regular routes and even send the route via email.

The maps come direct from the Ordinance Survey so are the most accurate available and all the travel info comes direct from 13 external sites that deal with traffic status and live public transport timetables.

And in the unlikely event that you’re not using it to check your favourite biking roads you can even book train, coach and plane tickets without having to re-input your route.

Click here to go to the new site (external link)