POINT PLEASANT BEACH — It was a packed house at the Woman’s Club of Point Pleasant on Monday afternoon, where the Mayors Wellness Campaign hosted the Greater Mercer Transportation Management Association (GMTMA) for a lecture on how to use technology to make transportation easier.
GMTMA senior planner Steve daCosta and travel trainer Carol Chamberlain presented the lecture, which provided guests with useful tips on topics like planning trips with navigation apps and using rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft. DaCosta said that apps like Google Maps are useful not only for navigating anywhere on the entire globe, but for planning trips as well.
“In the search bar for Google Maps, you can search for any destination in the entire world, pretty much,” daCosta said. “Let’s say we wanted to get to Target. I can type in ‘Target,’ click ‘See locations,’ and it will bring up a list of locations. I know I want to go to the one in Brick Township; if I click on that, a side panel comes up — this little side panel provides us with lots of important information about the Target.”
Another app that they demonstrated was Waze, a navigation app which is known for providing real-time traffic updates, among other perks which daCosta explained.
“Say I wanted to head to Broadway for the day,” he said. “Waze calculates my route, and as you can see, it also shows you the tolls you’re going to be paying — here, it says I’m going to pay $28.91 in tolls. The other feature of Waze is making stops; at the bottom of the screen, there’s a little magnifying glass that is a search function. If I click on that, I can add a destination…I can click on the ‘gas’ icon, and that will give me all the gas stations along my route; it tells me where they are, how much the gas is going to cost and how much time is going to be added to my trip.”
Chamberlain and daCosta also taught guests how to share their location with loved ones, reassuring them that an outside person cannot simply extract location information from someone’s phone.
“Someone can’t just go in and get your location from your phone; you have to give them permission,” daCosta said.
Chamberlain told The Ocean Star that providing services like this presentation is one of GMTMA’s main missions, with its travel training program focusing on seniors and people with low mobility.
“Travel training helps seniors maintain their independence, gives them some level of comfort in using tech and makes transportation apps more accessible,” said Chamberlain. “Our goal is to make transportation throughout Mercer and Ocean counties more accessible and safer. We offer pedestrian safety classes, bike rodeos for kids…(and) trail maps to encourage people to bike and walk; all kinds of transportation.”
For more about the GMTMA and its Travel Training Program, visit gmtma.org/mercer-county-travel-training-program.
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