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MapQuest is hoping to make your summer plans a little simpler with its new feature, dubbed Route Builder. According to the company, "this new tool lets travelers save time and money by mapping out their entire journey - and multiple destination stops in between - in one convenient step."

Road Trippin' With MapQuest
An online poll of 1,023 individuals (conducted by ICR), as well as interviews of 3,000 people, determined that a tool like Route Builder "was the #1 requested feature among the millions of MapQuest consumers." Now in beta form, it can be found here.

Route Builder will offer many of the same options that MapQuest has traditionally presented. Its features include the ability to "add up to 10 location destinations along a route; optimize route to avoid highways or toll roads; find gas stations, hotels, restaurants, ATMs, and other places along the way; re-order stops by dragging and dropping and automatically recalculate driving directions; and choose to show or hide directions as the route is plotted."

There's nothing revolutionary here, but MapQuest isn't claiming to have made any groundbreaking advancements. Route Builder just offers a more efficient means of planning a complicated route. It should help the company maintain its standing as "both the top mapping and directories site on the Web."

The MapQuest site does indeed see a lot of traffic; it "served more than 50 million users in May, 2006." And the company expects to continue getting visitors, despite the effect high gas prices have had on some people's travel plans. Although the May 2006 MapQuest Road Trips survey found that "72% of those planning to take a road trip this year said that gas prices were affecting their summer travel plans . . . . nearly half of Americans (49%) plan to take a road trip this summer nevertheless."

MapQuest Route Builder could be a handy tool in planning road trips, and, as the company points out, it's been released "just in time for the busy July 4th travel weekend."

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Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.