FairMeet
An app that ranks London pubs, cafés and parks by how equally everyone in your group can reach them by Tube, bus or train — solving the 'meet halfway' argument with real TfL journey times.
Friend groups, remote teammates and family members in London trying to pick a fair place to meet
- Enter everyone's start postcode and arrival time, get venues ranked by max-journey fairness, not geographic midpoint
- Live TfL journey time per attendee with tube/tube+walk breakdowns, plus a one-tap 'send everyone the route'
- Filters for pub, café, park or restaurant with capacity and reservable tables
- 'What if' slider — see how the meeting changes if the City worker goes straight from work or the group meets an hour earlier
London's 33 boroughs have no venue reachable in under an hour from everyone; with hybrid teams now routinely meeting friends across boroughs, 'meet in the middle' has become a real coordination problem worth a dedicated tool.
The originating HN story actually scored only 26 points (not the 55 claimed), and top commenter observed 'very relevant for anyone whose friends live uniformly spaced across all boroughs... probably no-one' — confirming the cross-London use case is niche.I Timed 7,194 Journeys to Find London's Most Equidistant Pub ↗
Several direct competitors exist (Midpointr, Meet In The Middle, Meedol, middleseat) doing generic halfway-point search, but none appear specifically anchored on TfL real journey-time equity across London boroughs.Meet In The Middle Alternatives ↗Midpointr | Meet Halfway & Find the Perfect Meeting Point ↗
TfL Unified API is free open data, and competing tools like Midpointr and Meet In The Middle operate as free web utilities — for a one-off 'pick a venue' decision tool, willingness to pay is weak.Transport for London - API ↗
TfL open data is a stable, long-running free feed and London venue culture is durable, but the underlying '33 boroughs, no venue within an hour' framing is oversold — most friend groups cluster regionally.TfL Journey Planner API - Department for Transport ↗
Building block is trivial: TfL Unified API is free and well-documented, OpenStreetMap already catalogues all 3,170 London pubs, and existing GitHub projects (Streamlit planner, MCP server) demonstrate the plumbing works in days.GitHub - ifaruqi/tfl-journey-planner ↗TFL Journey MCP Server - GitHub ↗