Israeli company designs platform to optimize trail, hiking experiences
All the information gathered from the previous travel goes towards optimizing the trail experience of the next year, and so on.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFA group of MASA participants hike in the Negev near Machtesh Ramon on April 21 2013(photo credit: SARAH SCHUMAN/ FLASH90)
Israeli-headquartered WishTrip announced the release of its new trek and trail guiding platform, Trek Pilot, which uses crowdsourcing to compile places of interest from previous visitors to make recommendations on routes for future hikers to take.The new platform could be used to gather recommendations on which trails to take, or it could be used to learn more information about the trail a hiker might currently be on - which could, for an ideal example, point them in the direction of that scenic overlook just off the trail, that only a few have ever found previously. Overall, it would play an active role in shaping a visitor's travel experience, with personalized recommendations uploaded directly to the Trek Pilot smartphone application for users to optimize and record their travels."Traditional GPS was designed to take users from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ with speed and efficiency. While this is the best way to commute to a given destination, it doesn't account for the experience of the journey itself,” WishTrip CEO Bezalel Lenzizky says.“We built Trek Pilot focused directly on this journey, giving travelers the confidence to explore and engage with the location they are visiting, without getting lost," he added. "It also allows travel destinations and attractions to have a larger role in shaping the experience of their visitors and provide additional resources."The crowdsourcing software has already earned a US patent. Not only does it allow hikers to optimize a preconfigured chosen route, it also tracks when the user will finish, the weather, and whether or not it will get dark before the hike is over.All the information gathered from the previous traveler goes toward optimizing the trail experience of the next hiker, and so on.“The Trek Pilot software we created over the last two and a half years is the engine that drives WishTrip,” Lenzizky concluded. “The user interface was specifically tailored to allow visitors to freely explore a trek, without interrupting the experience of the journey as many GPS apps do.”
