London beta
Transparent by design · Beta · London first
How FairWhere decides
FairWhere helps London groups meet without wasting travel. Instant FairPath rankings and live TfL checks are free. Optional advanced Google Deep Search is paid, and only if you need it.
Proprietary routing intelligence
FairPath: travel times that improve with live checks
Pinning a midpoint on a map is trivial. Ranking a shortlist fairly for a multi-origin group is not. FairPath is FairWhere's estimate engine: a hierarchical, privacy-safe model of London door-to-door times that learns from every live check so instant rankings stay useful.
Mechanism
A travel-time field that gets sharper where live checks teach the most.
Privacy
Training uses ~100 m origin cells and station pairs - never street names.
Hierarchical residual shrinkage
Station-pair, category and time-bucket residuals are learned from live labels, then James–Stein / empirical-Bayes shrunk toward parents when data is sparse, so a noisy hop cannot wreck the ranking.
EMA cache + confidence blending
Each hop keeps an online Bayesian mean (EMA) with effective sample size n_eff. Cached seconds are blended with geometric heuristics by hop confidence. 1 − e^(−n_eff/n₀), so unproven corridors stay cautious.
Graph hop inference
Missing OD pairs are filled from the rail graph: inferred hops, access/egress factors for parks and museums, and reliability quantiles (p80 bands) so “kindest” mode can score worst-case journeys, not just means.
Acquisition under a live budget
Uncertainty scores decide which corridors to explore next. Demand-weighted origin–destination sampling from privacy cells seeds coverage without burning user fair-use quotas.
Ranking-regret priors
When a force-check flips the shortlist, FairPath rebuilds venue and category residual nudges: multi-fidelity labels that pull disputed places back into contention on the next free preview.
Privacy-safe learning
Training uses ~100 m origin cells, station pairs, venue categories and timings. Never street addresses or names. Live TfL and Google remain authoritative when you verify; FairPath makes the free rank trustworthy earlier.
Spreadsheets, “meet in the middle”, and a handful of Google Directions tabs cannot maintain a calibrated multi-origin field, shrink sparse residuals, or optimise a limited live-check budget for group fairness. That is the point of FairPath.
How we measure estimate error (organic MAPE vs live TfL, what we exclude, why Google is not the teacher): FairPath accuracy.
Why Google Maps alone is not enough
Why this hasn't been done before
Fairness for a group is not one Directions search: it is every person's journey to every candidate, then a score across the set. That product of people × places is why nobody has shipped this as a casual consumer tool: brute-force live routing does not fit in a chat window.
Scale
FairPath ranks the field first, then live-checks only the shortlist that matters.
Example: 4 people considering 100 places (a typical “best of” list).
Option 1 · Google assessment basis
Look up every journey by hand
- 4 × 100 = 400 one-way Google Directions lookups (one per person per place).
- At roughly 45 seconds each to open, paste, wait and note the time, before you have compared fairness, returns or trade-offs.
~5 hours
400 × 45s ≈ 18,000 seconds of manual work
Option 2 · FairWhere model
Estimate the field, live-check the shortlist
- FairPath ranks all 100 from the calibrated travel-time field in under a second.
- Live TfL then verifies the fairest ~20 (not all 100) for the group. 4 × 20 journeys, not 4 × 100.
~15–20 seconds
Instant shortlist + ~15s live check → ranked results
That gap: hours of tab-switching versus under half a minute: is why “just use Google” never became a fairness product. FairWhere only works because FairPath collapses the search space first, then spends live routing where it changes the answer.
Fairness is more than the midpoint
The fairest option is not always the geographic middle. FairWhere compares everyone's journey, return route, cost, convenience and venue fit to show which places work best for the group, using free FairPath estimates, then free live TfL checks.
Problem
A map centre can still leave one friend with a much longer journey.
Prefer a side-by-side comparison? Meet in the middle vs FairWhere. Already driving a through-route and collecting friends? Pick up on the way. For a practical playbook, read how London groups actually meet, or start from a curated Placelist and rank it for your group.
The FairWhere Score
Every result receives a score out of 100. A place can have the shortest total time and still leave one person with a long trip.
The score on this website can include a late train penalty that the app does not show yet.
Score
Each mode ranks the same places differently. Fairest can add some total time.
Total group travel time
Everyone's journeys added together.
Journey balance
How close everyone's times are.
Longest individual journey
Protects the person with the furthest trip.
Convenience
How few changes and how little walking the journeys need.
Venue quality
How well liked the place is and how well it suits your group.
Availability & bookability
Open at the right time; bookable where relevant.
Accessibility constraints
Respects any step-free or mobility needs.
Recommended, Quickest overall, and Fairest to each person each rank the same places differently.
Research sibling · Content factory
London Journey Fairness Index
The FairWhere Score ranks venues for your group. The Fairness Index is the city-scale research view: how journey burden falls across London neighbourhood pairs, built from the same precompute matrix that powers crawlable /meet/{a}/{b} pages - not crow-flies midpoints.
- Area origins are primary stations (Clapham Common, Walthamstow Central), never home addresses.
- Primary signal is the minute gap between the two door-to-door estimates to the winning venue, plus FairWhere Score balance.
- Meet-pair drafts stay private until admin Approve; the Index CSV ships once the matrix is stable - not two pages a day.
Fairness modes
Pick the definition of fair that matches your group.
Recommended
The best all-round meeting point: nobody is left with a long trip, and the group does not travel further than it needs to.
Quickest overall
The meeting point with the least travel time when everyone's journeys are added together.
Fairest to each person
Keeps the longest single trip short, then keeps everyone's times close together.
This can add some total time.
FairWhere shows the trade-offs
FairWhere does not hide trade-offs. It shows why one place ranks above another.
- LabelShortest total time
- LabelClosest journey times
- LabelShortest longest trip
- LabelGreat venue, weaker journey fairness
Partners do not buy the fairest result
FairWhere may show Partner Venues, Verified Placelists or Sponsored Placelists. These are clearly labelled. Partner status does not automatically improve the FairWhere Score.
Partner venues are ranked using the same fairness logic as other eligible places.
Travel times are estimates, then verified
Routes, travel times, prices, opening hours and availability can change. FairWhere shows a FairPath estimate first, then a free live TfL check. Optional advanced Google Deep Search is paid credits only. Always check before final booking or travel.
Verify
Scarce TfL calls are spent on the shortlist - and can flip a disputed place.
We track free-preview error as organic MAPE versus live TfL: mean of |estimated − actual| / actual × 100 on product traffic. Seeder runs, soft-arrival taps, and retired Google teacher labels are excluded so the number cannot be optimised by synthetic load.
Full definitions, exclusions, and the public snapshot contract: FairPath accuracy.
Data sources for journey overviews
FairWhere may use TfL Open Data and optional Google Routes to estimate and verify London public-transport journeys. FairPath learns only from privacy-safe station pairs, venue categories and timings - never from street addresses or names. Live TfL is the persisted accuracy teacher; Google Deep Search may still appear as optional live UX but is not written as a durable training label. FairWhere is not endorsed by or affiliated with TfL. Journey overviews are simplified and are not intended for navigation.
Your location data matters
People may enter home, work, airport or travel locations. FairWhere should only use this information to create and share Plans, unless the user agrees otherwise.
Privacy Policy·Terms
Frequently asked questions
What is FairWhere?
FairWhere is a free London resource that helps groups meet up more often without one person carrying the journey. You pick a curated Placelist (pubs, parks, museums, padel, meeting pins), add where people are coming from, and get an instant FairPath ranking by whole-journey fairness: travel time, balance, changes, and the trip home. Free live TfL checks verify the shortlist when it matters. We are not a generic maps or social app, and we are not endorsed by TfL. We exist so Londoners use the network better and stay social across the city.
How is FairWhere different from meeting in the middle?
A geographic midpoint ignores Tube lines, walking, changes, return journeys and cost. FairWhere Score compares real journey burden across the group, so the top result can be fairer even when it is not in the middle of the map.
What is the FairWhere Score?
The FairWhere Score is a 0 to 100 ranking for each candidate venue. It compares total group travel time, how even journeys are, the longest trip, convenience, and how well the place suits the group.
Does FairWhere work outside London?
The product is in beta and planners currently work for London only. More cities are planned later.
Do partner venues buy a better ranking?
No. Partner Venues and Sponsored Placelists are clearly labelled. Partner status does not automatically improve the FairWhere Score; partners are ranked with the same fairness logic as other eligible places.
Are travel times exact?
Free FairPath preview gives instant journey estimates trained on prior live checks. Live TfL checks are free and verify the shortlist. Optional advanced Google Deep Search is paid credits only. Always confirm before you book or travel.
What is FairPath?
FairPath is FairWhere's proprietary journey estimate system. It improves free rankings from every live check, fills in missing station hops, adjusts for venue access quirks, and spends live-check budget where times are uncertain.
How does FairWhere measure travel-time accuracy?
Primarily as organic mean absolute percent error (MAPE) of FairPath estimates versus live TfL actuals on product traffic. Seeder runs, soft-arrival taps, and retired Google teacher labels are excluded. See /fairpath-accuracy for definitions.
What is the London Journey Fairness Index?
A research view of how journey burden falls across London neighbourhood pairs, built from the same precompute matrix as FairWhere’s meet-between pages. It is not a crow-flies midpoint map. See /fairness-index.