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Transforming Property Discovery with Commute Intelligence
CoStar Group is a global leader in digital real estate platforms, connecting millions of property seekers with their ideal homes, apartments, and commercial spaces.
With flagship brands including Homes.com, Apartments.com, LoopNet, and OnTheMarket, CoStar empowers users to make more informed location-based decisions.
To enhance the user experience across its brand, CoStar partnered with TravelTime, integrating advanced travel time and commute search technology into its property portals and real estate platforms.
This transforms how people discover properties, delivering dynamic, personalised insights about how people live, move, and commute, mirroring real-world decisions.
In this piece, we outline how CoStar brands use TravelTime.
Homes.com
Commute search, POIs, and routes
Homes.com gives users up-to-date real estate information, tools, and listings across the US. It gives property seekers the insights they need to find their home. And a key part of this is accurate location-based insights.
But for CoStar and Homes, a simple pin on a map was not enough. Their users demand personalisation and real-world insights that show the possibilities of a location, beyond simply where it is.
On Homes.com, users can:
- Run a commute search by entering destination, mode, and travel time tolerance
- See a filtered property list and isochrone map that outlines where they can live within their target travel time
- Set personal POIs, like a workplace, gym, school, or family home, and travel preferences to each
- View instant A-to-B travel times and routes between the POI and each listing
With TravelTime, Homes blends top of funnel commute-based search with on-page travel times and routes for each listing. It helps property seekers understand properties better, keeps users returning, and drives more leads.
Apartments.com
Commute search and isochrones
Apartments.com is a part of the most comprehensive online rental marketplace in the US. It helps 100s of millions of renters find their perfect property, with location data playing a critical role in the decision-making process.
Using Apartments.com, renters can:
- Enter a location, preferred travel mode, and maximum commute duration, to search by commute time not just distance
- Search by custom conditions such as “rush hour” or “no traffic” to simulate real-world commutes
- See listings automatically filtered by actual commute time, not just distance
- Interact with an isochrone map, highlighting which areas are reachable within the user’s chosen time limit
TravelTime and Apartments empower renters to centre commute times and lifestyle choices in their search, focusing only on properties that truly work for their daily routine.
OnTheMarket
Lifestyle-driven search with commute filters and isochrones
OnTheMarket is the UK’s fastest growing property search website. It focuses on a seamless search experience for users a present the unique opportunity to see properties 24 hours before the big players, Zoopla and Rightmove.
With location being one of the most important factors in the property seekers’ decision-making, accurate and personalised insights are central to the search experience. And with TravelTime, OnTheMarket gives buyers a new way to start their property journey — by searching based on commute and lifestyle priorities.
- Users begin a travel time search by setting a destination, mode of transport, and maximum travel time
- Properties are filtered and the commute times are displayed on the listings
- TravelTime calculates an isochrone boundary on the map, visually showing where users can live within their ideal commute
This approach understands that travel time is a key decision factor, and property seekers need to understand location suitability instantly. With TravelTime, OnTheMarket calculates accurate journey times to create a seamless UX for their end-users.
LoopNet
Commercial accessibility through isochrone visualisation
LoopNet is by far the most visited and heavily trafficked online commercial real estate marketplace, with 13 million monthly global unique visitors. It is the global leader in commercial real estate and one of the most effective for connecting listings and users.
TravelTime enhances these commercial listings with instant visibility into site accessibility and commuter reach.
- Each property page includes time-based isochrones centred on the property, showing how far clients or employees can travel within different time or distance bands
- Isochrones can represent car, public transport, or walking journeys, depending on the property type and audience
- These visual travel-time zones help investors, developers, and business owners assess a site’s accessibility and commercial potential
With TravelTime, LoopNet turns static maps into powerful mobility insights, helping users visualise connectivity and catchment areas instantly.
Built for large-scale property portals
CoStar and TravelTime have transformed the way people search for residential and commercial property.
Performance and scale
With millions of listings and daily searches across CoStar Group’s portfolio, the platforms demand high performance and scalability, without compromise.
TravelTime API is purpose-built to meet these demands. Our technology is designed for high concurrency and large-scale applications to succeed, including property and real estate platforms.
For CoStar, TravelTime powers millions of simultaneous commute calculations with unparalleled speed, accuracy, and reliability. We ensure users receive real-time insights even during peak traffic periods.
Accurate travel time calculations
TravelTime models real-world transit networks including scheduled public transport, real walking and cycling paths, driving routes, and transfer times.
We allow for complex requests using advanced parameters, accounting for time-of-day variations, connection wait times, and more, to reflect how people actually travel.
Our high-quality data and routing logic ensure that commute calculations across the CoStar Group are trustworthy and credible, reflecting the real-world multi-modal routes that real people make.
Unique pricing model
With millions of daily searches, CoStar makes a huge number of commute calculations —and therefore a huge number of API requests.
This would not be possible under a transactional or PAYG API pricing model, with providers such as Google, HERE, TomTom, and Mapbox, whose prices scale linearly with queries.
TravelTime’s fixed annual license model offers unlimited requests — a game changer for large-scale marketplaces like CoStar.
Our model allows CoStar brands to calculate accurate travel times, using multiple transport modes, for millions of daily searches, with ease.
Commute time as the new location lens
Across all CoStar Group brands, TravelTime has redefined how users evaluate property. Instead of simply asking where a property is, people can now ask “How long will it take to get there?”
By embedding commute intelligence at the heart of property discovery, CoStar Group has created a new benchmark for user experience. It’s one that’s smarter, more personal, and perfectly aligned with how people make real-life decisions about where to live, rent, or invest.
Leading property portals like CoStar, Realtor, Rightmove, Zoopla, and Jitty choose TravelTime. We are the number one choice for commute time calculations to power a more personal property search experience.
Discover how TravelTime can transform your property portal. Get started today.