Civic community website provider mySociety has launched Mapumental, a new online service which creates maps showing precise commuting times to any given postcode, has launched.

The service shows jobseekers at a glance how long it would take to reach the place of work, opening up new possibilities for users considering making a job application. Owners of recruitment sites can purchase the maps for inclusion into job listings.

The service uses travel-time mapping technology that draws journey data from the National Public Transport Data Repository, and was developed with support from Channel 4. Mapumental’s algorithm calculates journey times from any given point (postcode or latitude and longitude) to every other point in the UK. Journey times are displayed graphically as a heatmap, on a background from OpenStreetMap.