How do you find a fair halfway point when everyone is driving?

By comparing real drive times, not distance. The fair point is where each person's door-to-door drive lands closest together, which accounts for motorways, traffic and crossings. That is often well off the geographic midpoint, especially where a river or a highway decides the route.

Why is the map midpoint wrong for a group driving in?

Because roads are not uniform. A motorway can make a place forty miles away quicker to reach than somewhere fifteen miles away on back roads, and a river with few bridges can put two people who look close far apart in drive time. The midpoint on a map ignores all of that.

Does it account for traffic and one-way systems?

It uses real door-to-door drive times rather than straight-line distance, so the route each person would actually take is what gets compared. A spot that is closer as the crow flies is not fairer if getting there means crawling through the centre or doubling back to a bridge.

What about parking once we get there?

togather finds the point that keeps the drive even and shows what is around it, so you can check there is somewhere to park before you commit. The travel time is the part that is hard to judge by eye; the parking is the easy check once the fair area is settled.

Meet halfway by car

Driving halfway is not the geographic midpoint - traffic, motorways, one-way systems and river or bridge crossings all pull drive time away from distance, so the fair point is where everyone's real drive time lands closest together. togather times each person's door-to-door drive and returns the spots that keep the trip even, then you can weigh parking and how easy each place is to reach.

Find your meeting point How it works

Why driving halfway is not the midpoint on the map

For a group driving in, it is tempting to drop a pin between everyone and call it fair. Roads do not work that way. A motorway can make a town forty miles out quicker to reach than a village fifteen miles away on country lanes, and a river with only a few bridges can put two people who look close on a map half an hour apart once they have driven to a crossing and back.

The practical effect is that drive time follows the road network, not the straight line between people. Any tool that averages coordinates and drops a pin is answering a question about geometry when the group asked a question about time.

What actually makes a driving spot fair

Two things, and neither is obvious from a map.

Which roads connect it. A place on a motorway junction is reachable quickly from far more of the region than a spot buried in a network of local roads, even when the second one looks more central.
What the crossings and the traffic do. A river, a level crossing or a congested centre between two drivers turns a short-looking route into a long one, and it is usually the thing that decides which of two candidate spots is fairer.

Read the spread, not the average

The number worth optimising is the spread - the gap between the longest and the shortest drive in the group. An average hides the person driving the furthest, and that person is the one who decides whether the plan happens at all. togather times each person’s real door-to-door drive and shows it next to the result, so a spot that is twenty minutes for three people and an hour for a fourth is visible for what it is rather than hidden inside an average.

Add everyone’s starting point, keep the drivers on the car mode, and send the result straight to the group chat.

How togather works it out

Add everyone's starting point
Enter where each person is driving from - up to six starting points. A suburb or a street is enough, so nobody has to share a precise address, and togather works out the drive from there.
Keep each driver on the driving mode
Everyone driving stays on the car mode, and anyone being dropped at a station or cycling in can be set to their own mode. Mixed groups are the normal case, so the person without a car is not forced onto someone else's map.
Read the spread before you pick
togather shows each person's drive time next to the result, so the group can see the gap between the longest and the shortest drive and choose a spot that is even for everyone rather than quick for one and a slog for another.

Worked through, city by city

These guides name the interchanges that actually work as a fair midpoint in each city, and why the geographic middle tends to be the wrong answer there.

Questions

How do you find a fair halfway point when everyone is driving?: By comparing real drive times, not distance. The fair point is where each person's door-to-door drive lands closest together, which accounts for motorways, traffic and crossings. That is often well off the geographic midpoint, especially where a river or a highway decides the route.
Why is the map midpoint wrong for a group driving in?: Because roads are not uniform. A motorway can make a place forty miles away quicker to reach than somewhere fifteen miles away on back roads, and a river with few bridges can put two people who look close far apart in drive time. The midpoint on a map ignores all of that.
Does it account for traffic and one-way systems?: It uses real door-to-door drive times rather than straight-line distance, so the route each person would actually take is what gets compared. A spot that is closer as the crow flies is not fairer if getting there means crawling through the centre or doubling back to a bridge.
What about parking once we get there?: togather finds the point that keeps the drive even and shows what is around it, so you can check there is somewhere to park before you commit. The travel time is the part that is hard to judge by eye; the parking is the easy check once the fair area is settled.

Also worth reading

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