A fair meeting point for 5 people
With five people there is no midpoint to split, so the fair meeting point is the place that keeps the average journey short while holding the longest trip close to the shortest. Averaging five locations on a map produces a spot that suits nobody in particular. togather times all five journeys on the mode each person actually travels by and returns the places that keep the group even.
Two people split a distance, five people do not
For two people there is something to halve. Add a third and the idea of a midpoint quietly stops meaning anything: there is no line between three points, and no obvious place on a map that is the middle of five. What survives is a different question - which place keeps everyone’s journey short and, just as much, keeps them close to each other.
That reframing is the whole trick, and it is why group size changes the answer rather than just the arithmetic.
The average is the trap
Take four friends in one part of the city and a fifth on the other side. Average the five locations and the answer lands near the cluster, because four votes beat one. Everyone in the cluster gets a short trip, the fifth person gets a long one, and the number still looks reasonable. Nothing in the average tells you that one person is doing most of the travelling.
The number that does tell you is the spread: the gap between the longest and the shortest journey in the group. A spot with a twelve-minute spread is fair. A spot with a forty-minute spread is one person’s inconvenience with four people’s approval, and it is usually the reason the plan quietly dies.
Five people, five modes
Groups of five are almost never uniform. Somebody cycles, somebody walks in from nearby, somebody is on a train from out of town. togather sets travel mode per person, times each journey on the network that person is really using, and then compares the five results in minutes - the only unit they share.
What comes back is a shortlist of places where nobody in the five is carrying the trip, with every person’s travel time shown next to it so the group can see the answer is even instead of taking it on trust.
Add everyone’s starting point, set how each person travels, and send the result to the group chat.
How togather works it out
Add all five starting points
Enter up to six in total, so a group of five fits with room to spare. A street or a neighbourhood is enough - nobody has to hand over an address.
Set each person's travel mode
Five people rarely travel the same way. Each one gets their own mode, so the two on the metro, the one cycling and the one walking are all timed on the network they are actually using.
Check the spread before you send it
All five travel times appear next to the result. The gap between the longest and the shortest is the honest measure of whether the spot is fair, and it is the number the group will argue about otherwise.
Questions
- How do you find a fair meeting point for 5 people?
- Compare all five journeys rather than looking for a middle. The fair spot is the one that keeps the average journey short and the worst journey close to the best, which is a different question from where the average of five locations lands - and usually a different answer.
- Why does averaging five locations not work?
- Because an average has no idea who is inconvenienced. Four people clustered in one district will drag the average towards themselves and leave the fifth with a long trip, and the average will still look balanced. The spread is what exposes it.
- What if the five of us travel completely differently?
- That is the normal case and it is handled per person. One can be on the metro, one cycling, one walking and one driving in from outside the city. Each journey is timed on its own network and the results are compared in minutes.
- How many people can it handle?
- Up to six starting points. Five fits comfortably, and the maths gets more useful as the group grows, because the bigger the group the further the fair point drifts from anything you would guess by eye.
Settle it in about a minute
Add everyone’s starting point, pick how each person travels, and send the result to the group. No download, no sign-up.
Find your meeting point