ShadySide FAQ

ShadySide compares route direction, route shape, trip timing, estimated sun position, and weather context to decide which side should get less direct sunlight overall. A trip that turns several times can shift from sunny to shaded windows during the ride, so the recommendation is based on the full journey instead of one simple rule like always sit left or always sit right.

Use ShadySide as a practical comfort guide rather than a guarantee. Trees, tall buildings, tinted windows, detours, carriage layout, and real-time delays can all change how much sun reaches you. The best result comes from checking the exact route and the departure time closest to when you actually board.

The sun angle changes throughout the day, so the better side on a morning trip can easily become the worse side on the return trip. Season, direction of travel, and route turns all matter too, which is why ShadySide recalculates the answer for the specific time you enter rather than using one fixed shade side for every journey.

Yes. Buses and trains are the core use cases because route direction and departure time strongly affect which windows get hit by direct sun. Car journeys are supported too for pre-trip comfort and low-sun awareness, but they should still be treated as planning guidance rather than in-drive advice.

Open ShadySide before boarding, enter the real start point and destination, choose bus mode, and use the recommendation for the departure time closest to your ride. There is no permanent shady side for every bus route because the answer changes with direction, season, turns, weather, and the time of day.

Those modes are more experimental. Flights depend heavily on altitude, cloud cover, and flight path, while walking and cycling involve open-air exposure instead of window-side comfort. ShadySide can still offer a directional clue in some cases, but the strongest recommendations today are for bus, train, and car journeys.

No. ShadySide does not store raw origin or destination text, exact coordinates, or personally identifiable trip logs as part of the normal public planner flow. Inputs are used to calculate the result, and the public product is designed to avoid turning everyday trip checks into personal travel history.

Thumbs up and thumbs down feedback is stored anonymously so the team can measure whether recommendations feel useful in the real world. A small session cookie helps prevent duplicate voting, but it is not used to identify you personally or attach feedback to an account.

Yes. Saved routes stay on your device through browser storage, so they are available for convenience without creating an account or sending a personal route library to the server. If you clear your browser storage, those saved routes disappear too.

Use the thumbs up or thumbs down controls after a recommendation, or visit the contact page if you need to explain a bug or edge case in more detail. That feedback helps improve future recommendations without requiring an account or a long support flow.

Send a thumbs down vote when the answer feels off. Helpful misses often come from unusual route changes, timing shifts, window tint, local obstructions, or weather changing faster than the trip estimate. Reporting those misses is one of the fastest ways to improve the model over time.

Yes. The public planner, content pages, and core shade-side recommendation flow are free to use with no account, no subscription wall, and no premium tier required to get the main answer.