Find a run
Preview. Dates are hard-coded for this demo. The real planner will let you set them.
The mission
I want to build a trail running planner with a unique set of features: a community-curated list of routes connected to the Swiss train timetable.
Other planning tools can also be added over time. For example include weather and conditions, or extend this to multi-day trips, recommending appropriate hotels or huts.
Once validated in Switzerland, I am also open to expanding this across other geographies.
Current status
The planner above is a preview. It works against a precomputed snapshot of routes, finding the public-transport-friendly options for a fixed scenario.
The following lists what has been implemented so far for this project. This is obviously a very early preview, aimed to see if this is a project for which there is real demand in the community.
Route collection
To bootstrap this, I have collected routes from Swiss trail races. It is clear, that this will need a much bigger database of routes to be useful. For more information, see Contribute your routes below.
Route time calculation
I have implemented an initial algorithm to calculate run duration for a GPX route. For this I took common hiking duration calculations and adjusted them to better reflect trail running. This is something that will have to be tuned based on other runners' feedback and runs.
SBB proof of concept
The initial prototype uses a local deployment of Transitous. It currently takes about 60 seconds to do the routing for all the routes in the database, which is why this is not yet a real-time app.
Contribute your routes
The initial seed catalogue comes from the GPX routes collected from Swiss trail races. To be respectful to copyright I did not go to any of the other available resources to blindly download GPX routes and re-upload them here.
To turn this into a genuinely useful resource for Swiss trail runners, this needs your routes. Do you have a favourite loop, a beautiful trail anywhere in Switzerland? Do you have a route that lives rent-free in your head? Send it in! It helps the next runner plan their weekend.
In the current preview mode, please use routes@trailplanner.org to submit your routes.
Your Feedback
Before investing too much time in this project, I am looking for feedback from the trail running community. Is this something you would be interested in? Are there specific features you would like from such a site? Hit me up on mail@patrice.ch.
If you are as excited about this project as I am, and could imaging contributing to it in any way, please reach out as well.
About me
This project is being developed by Patrice Neff, a trail runner living in the Zürich region.
With a young family and startup co-founder my free time is limited and precious. Despite this I want to maximise my ultra running training and use the odd weekend day for my long runs.
Trailplanner.org is my contribution to the Swiss trail-running community, because we don't need yet another commercial app, but a shared community resource.
Values
The following are the ground values behind this project.
Free, for good
This is not a commercial project. Trailplanner.org shall be a community resource. No forced sign-up, no paywall, no hidden premium tier.
Open data
The curated database is openly licensed. What we collect, you can reuse. This way this project can serve as the foundation for the next cool idea.
By the community
A labour of love by a community member.