AAA Offers Free Map Directions Online
July 16, 2004 -- In this week's Cybershake, we look at how AAA wants to compete with free online direction sites such as Mapquest. Plus, we take a look at a service that promises to immortalize your thoughts by sending them to the highest places.
Mapping Out Road Trips Online
For about 100 years, AAA has been helping families plan vacations and other trips with its map packages called TripTiks, which are free to members. The planners contain foldout maps customized to show only the route each member should take from his specific origin point to his particular vacation destination.
Then along came the Internet and upstart online mapping sites such as Mapquest, Mappoint and others that can automatically figure out driving routes for free — with no membership required.
AAA's Jan Coyne says the auto club has been fighting back with its Internet TripTik. It provides online the same customized trip planning maps and advice that AAA offers locally at thousands of club offices nationwide. But now, AAA is spreading its tech wings a bit further.
At AAAmaps.com, creating a custom map for family vacations or personal road trips isn't just limited to AAA members. Anyone can log in and use the AAA map engine to find the best routes to travel.
Coyne says the site functions just like those free mapping sites, but with a distinction.
"We view those as [competitive] sites which give very good driving directions," says Coyne. But "[AAAmaps.com] really leverages our hundred years of experience in the mapping and routing and travel information industry."
AAA will continue to operate its Internet TripTik as a members-only Web site. The difference between that online service and the new AAAmaps site are the level of information and services.
AAA members on the TripTik site, for example, can plan out complex travel itineraries with maps that have up to 12 points of interest. So planning a road trip from New York to Chicago with stopovers at Hershey Park, Pa., and Cleveland can be done with one map search. AAAmaps.com users are limited to one stopover between their origin and destination.