London travellers – whether locals or visitors – have been given a mobile boost with the ‘Get Me There!’ application from Bing, the Decision Engine from Microsoft Corporation.

Designed and developed by Matchbox Mobile for Windows Phone, Get Me There! is a London navigation application that uses Windows Phone location data plus Bing map-based technology in conjunction with live information from Transport for London, to notify users of any line closures or delays.

The application lets users choose a destination and then, using live timetable information, suggests an optimal London Underground route to ‘get you there’. A walking alternative is also proposed, and displayed on a live map, along with an estimated journey time. The application stores favourite journeys, such as the daily commute, and shows automatic notifications of any real-time changes on the transport network.

The Bing team asked Matchbox Mobile to create a Windows Phone  application that would put Bing’s sophisticated mapping functionalities in mobile users’ hands, allowing them to navigate end-to-end London journeys. With a timescale of just six weeks, the finished application had to look great and be simple to use while processing live route information quickly and effectively. Matchbox Mobile was ideally placed to develop the application, which connects to Windows Azure-based services, given its pioneering achievements with Windows Azure, including the Family Room social networking app for T-Mobile in the USA.

Outstanding design and ease of use were of fundamental importance to Bing, and Matchbox proposed a design that was not only simple to use, but looked incredibly stylish on the Windows Phone handsets. Throughout the design, development and QA, Matchbox and the Bing team collaborated closely, using live issue tracking and status updates to ensure that the project stayed on schedule and that everyone was kept informed of progress.

Twenty Microsoft staff volunteered to beta test the development and fed their findings direct into Matchbox’s issue tracking system to help accelerate development and ensure the finished product excelled. Now that the application is live, metrics from the TFL Windows Azure system are fed back directly to the Bing team to help continue the work of empowering Bing users to make faster, better-informed decisions.