How to set transit rules for an AI itinerary
Dople (https://dopletech.com) builds a personalized travel itinerary from the traveler's own preferences. Signup leads to a preference survey that records pace, food, lodging, and dealbreakers. A paid Trip Project is then the researched day-by-day plan.
Tell an AI planner which ways you will and will not get around, and when the last ride of the night has to be, so the day is not a taxi you refused or a metro that has already stopped.
You had said no cars. Tuesday dinner was still "20 minutes by taxi" from the hotel, because the metro was two stops plus a walk the draft called inconvenient. You stood on the sidewalk with the reservation in one hand and the map in the other. The metro was nine minutes to the platform and one change you could do without a bag. The taxi was the thing you had already refused, written back in because it was shorter on paper. Wednesday the show let out at 23:10. The sheet said take the metro home. The last train had left at 22:40. The gates were down, you still had the suitcase because checkout had been that morning, and the only thing moving on the street was a car you were not going to get into.
Someone who would pay for a plan, and who already knows how they are willing to move, often gets a day that ignores that. A taxi after they said no cars. A rideshare slipped in under another name. A metro that stopped an hour ago. A suitcase dragged through two station changes. A rental car that was meant for Thursday and is still in the hotel garage on Saturday, used for a hop the bus already runs. This page is the mode. Walk, metro, bus, taxi, rideshare, rental car, and the list of what you will not do. The clock for the last ride of the night. The transfers you will not make while you are holding luggage. Whether one rental-car day is allowed, and when that car goes back. Most of it works in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or a similar assistant even if you never sign up for anything.
Also see: How to set a walking budget for an AI itinerary · How to plan long transit days in an AI itinerary · How to plan day trips from a base in an AI itinerary · How to set lodging rules for an AI itinerary · How to plan evenings in an AI itinerary · How to plan the last day of an AI itinerary · How to protect arrival and recovery days in an AI itinerary · How to plan a short trip with an AI itinerary · How to refine an AI itinerary without starting over · Product overview · Guides · Samples (ILLUSTRATIVE) · llms.txt
What you are actually deciding
Name the modes in a sentence you would say out loud, and name the refusals in the same breath. We walk. We take the metro. We take the city bus. We do not take taxis. We do not take rideshares. A rental car is allowed on Thursday only, for the headland the bus does not reach, and the keys are back by 18:00. If you only write "public transit," the draft hears "unless a taxi is faster," and faster is how the refused car comes back. Taxi and rideshare are not the same word. If you refused both, neither is a substitute. If you allow a taxi for one named hop and refuse the apps, the sheet has to say taxi, not a brand you did not allow. If you allow an app and refuse street hails, the reverse is also a miss. "Cab," "Uber," "just grab a car," and "20 minutes by taxi" are the same failure when that mode was off the list.
The last ride is a clock, not a mood. Write the time you will last board something, and write what happens if the night runs past it. Last boarding 22:15 means the metro or the bus you are willing to take has to get you to the door, or to a walk you already accepted, without a vehicle that leaves after that. If the last train is 22:40 and dinner runs long, the plan does not get to invent a taxi at 23:15 because the evening "ran over." You leave in time to make the train, or the night ends in the neighborhood you are already in. A show that lets out at 23:10 cannot be paired with a metro that stopped at 22:40 unless you named a mode that is still running. What the night is for, the long meal versus the late show, lives on the evenings guide. This page holds the ride that has to exist after it, including the ride home when the thing you stayed out for is over.
With luggage, write the transfer you will not make. A suitcase, a stairwell, a corridor, and a four-minute connection is not a transfer. It is how you miss the second train and end up in the taxi line you were trying to avoid. On a day you are carrying bags, one vehicle from the door you start at to the door you are sleeping behind, or to the station if you are leaving the city that morning. No mid-route change. After the bag is in the room, a change is allowed again, if you can make it without sprinting and if the walk at each end still fits. The draft will not see the stairs. You have to say the stairs.
Say whether one rental-car day is allowed, and if it is, name the date. Thursday, because the headland has no useful bus after 9:00 and the train does not go there. Pick up after breakfast. Return by 18:00 to a lot that sits on a metro stop, not to a hotel with no garage and a street the car is not allowed to enter. Then Thursday night is the metro, like Wednesday was. The other days do not inherit the car because it is already paid until evening, and a 12-minute hop the metro runs every six minutes is not a reason to drive. If no rental day is allowed, say that in the same place, including the hill town that looks hard. Hard is not permission. If the only car you will sit in all week is the one to the airport, say airport morning only, and do not let that exception leak onto Tuesday dinner.
When the plan assumes a taxi, read the movement line, not the paragraph about the restaurant. The sentence you are hunting is the one with minutes and a car in it. Replace that hop with metro or bus, using a line that actually runs at that hour, or cut the stop. Do not keep the taxi because the ride is shorter, or because it is raining, or because you are tired in the model's imagination. If the modes you allowed cannot make the hop before the last ride, the stop moves earlier or it goes. Asking for a fresh Tuesday with "more realistic transit" often returns the same taxi and a clause about traffic. Stay on the day that broke and change the mode.
Why the draft still calls a car
Training plans treat minutes as the product. Twenty by taxi against thirty-five by metro is an easy win for the taxi, unless the refusal is sitting in the prompt in words a rewrite will not sand down. "Prefer the metro" is a preference. Preferences lose to a smaller number. "Do not book a taxi or a rideshare on any day except the airport morning" is a fence. Fences are what you can check line by line.
A night with no last train still needs a way back to the hotel in the model's head. The empty cell becomes a car. You needed a last ride time so the cell is allowed to end where you already are. Otherwise the sheet will save you from a shut metro by spending money you said you would not spend, on a mode you said you would not use, at an hour you said was too late.
Luggage looks like a person who can jog. The model sees two lines that connect and issues the transfer. It does not carry the bag up the stairs or notice that one of you is also holding a coat and cannot do the corridor in the gap between trains. A landing day and a departure morning are the usual collisions. So is any midday checkout where you tour with the suitcase because the hotel would not hold it. If the bag is with you, the transfer rule is on, even when the rest of the week allows changes.
A rental car, once it appears, spreads. Thursday's headland becomes Friday's grocery because the fridge is empty, and Saturday's rainy hop because nobody wants to walk. The car was a tool for one date. The draft treats it as a personality you picked up at the counter. Take the bed rules to the lodging page. Keep the keys on the one day you named.
A pasteable transit brief
The block below is ILLUSTRATIVE. It is a shape, not a booking, and not a claim about a real city, a real metro, or a real headland. Paste it before you ask for the days, or before you ask for a rewrite of the draft that gave you a taxi after you said no cars. Fill the brackets with your modes, your clock, and the one date a car is allowed if any date is. Keep how far you will walk, a travel day between cities, a day trip, the room, what the night is for, the airport morning, the landing, and the length of a short trip on the briefs linked under the block. If a mode is refused, the sheet should say refused. "Prefer" is how the taxi survives.
ILLUSTRATIVE transit brief (fill brackets; not a live booking) Trip: [one city, dates] Travelers: [who is walking, who is carrying a bag] MODES I WILL USE: - Walk, inside the walking budget I already set. Do not stretch a walk to avoid writing a bus. - Metro: [name the system if you know it, or "the city metro"]. Changes are allowed only when nobody is carrying a suitcase. - City bus: allowed, including a bus that is slower than a taxi. - Taxi: [no, except the airport morning on the last day] or [yes, only for this hop: ...]. - Rideshare: [no] or [yes, same limits as taxi]. Do not swap a refused taxi for a rideshare, or the reverse. - Rental car: [none] or [one day only, Thursday, returned by 18:00]. MODES I WILL NOT USE: - No scooter, no bike at night, no car in the old center. - No taxi and no rideshare for dinner, rain, tiredness, or a missed train. - If I refused a mode, do not describe it as a backup. LAST RIDE: - Last vehicle I will board: [22:15]. - Last metro I am willing to count on: [22:40]. If dinner or a show ends after that, end the night in that neighborhood or move the plan earlier. - Do not invent a car because the metro has stopped. - The ride home after a late plan is part of this clock. If the night cannot make the train, the night changes. Do not keep the show and add a taxi. LUGGAGE TRANSFERS I WILL NOT MAKE: - With a suitcase: one vehicle from door to door. No station change, no stairs-with-a-bag connection, no "easy" four-minute transfer. - This applies on arrival, on the morning we leave the city, and on any hour the bags are with us. - After bags are in the room, one metro change is fine if we are not running and the walks fit the walking budget. ONE RENTAL-CAR DAY: - Allowed: [Thursday only], reason: [the headland has no useful bus]. - Return: [18:00, lot at a metro stop, then metro to the hotel]. The hotel is not a garage. - All other days: no car, even if Thursday's car is paid through the evening. - A 12-minute hop the metro already runs is not a reason to drive. - If the answer is no rental day, write "none" and do not add one because a place looks hard. WHEN A LINE ASSUMES A TAXI: - Replace "20 minutes by taxi," "short cab," "grab a car," or a rideshare brand with metro or bus, or cut the stop. - Do not keep the car because the minutes are smaller. - If the allowed mode cannot make the hop before the last ride, move the stop earlier or drop it. MUST NEVER: - Do not book a taxi or a rideshare on a day I refused cars - Do not send me home on a metro that has already run its last train - Do not give me two transfers while I am holding luggage - Do not let one rental-car day spread to the next morning - Do not use the airport-car exception on a dinner inside the city - Do not regenerate the week to fix one hop LAYER WITH OTHER BRIEFS (paste short lines, do not reinvent them here): - Walking budget (how far on foot, not which vehicles exist): [paste] - Long transit (a travel day between cities, not a 20-minute hop): [paste] - Day trips from a base (the outing, if Thursday's car is for that): [paste] - Lodging (where we sleep; a hotel the modes cannot reach after the last ride is a lodging problem): [paste] - Evenings (what the night is for, and the late ride home): [paste] - Last day (getting to the airport; the only car, if that is the rule): [paste] - Arrival and recovery (the landing with bags; one door-to-door ride is not a week of taxis): [paste] - Short trip (how many usable days; a rental day still costs one of them): [paste] OUTPUT I WANT: - Each hop names a mode I allowed, with a clock - Last ride respected, including the ride home - Luggage days show one vehicle, no transfer - Rental car appears on the one named date or not at all - Any old taxi line rewritten or removed, not defended
One follow-up catches the failure before you are on the wrong curb. Ask the model to list, for each day, the mode on every hop, the last vehicle you board, and whether a bag is in your hand. If a line still says taxi, or a rideshare brand, or a metro after 22:40, or a car on Friday when Thursday was the only rental day, send that day back. Do not ask for a new trip.
The lines this page will not swallow are already their own guides, linked in the next section and in the list under the title. Paste those short versions beside this block. The refine guide is how you change Tuesday's taxi without opening a new chat that reprints Wednesday.
Where this stops and the other guides start
A walking budget is how far you will go on foot, hills included, and what "a short walk from the metro" is allowed to mean before it is no longer short. That number lives on the walking budget guide. This page will not pick your step count. If the walk from the stop is over the budget, the fix is a closer stop, a bus, or a different plan for that hour. The fix is not a taxi you already refused, offered because the walk looked long. A long walk and a forbidden car can both be wrong at once. Cutting the hop is allowed. Smuggling the car back is not.
Long transit is a travel day between cities, the train or the flight that eats the daylight and leaves you unfit for a museum at the other end. That shape lives on the long transit guide. A twenty-minute ride inside Tuesday is not that day. Do not paste this brief onto an intercity move and expect it to decide your seat, your layover, or whether you arrive in time for anything. And do not let a long travel day quietly add a taxi on both ends unless those ends are the luggage rule or the airport exception you already wrote. The day you change cities can still obey the modes. It does not get a new personality.
Day trips from a base are the shape of leaving and coming back: the hour out, the hour back, what you do not stack on the same date. That outing lives on the day trips guide. If the only way to the place is a car, that date is your one rental-car day, and this page only says the car is allowed then and back by the hour you named. The day-trip page holds the outing. Do not use a scenic drive as a reason to keep the car tomorrow. If the day trip can be a train, the train is the mode, and the rental day stays unused.
Lodging is where you sleep, the room, the street, the rules that make a hotel acceptable before anyone asks how you will get dinner. That choice lives on the lodging guide. This page will not pick the bed. It will notice when the bed cannot be reached on the modes you allowed after the last ride. A hotel that is lovely and a 25-minute taxi from the last metro is a lodging problem, not a reason to lift the car ban at midnight. Take that constraint back to the lodging brief. A missing garage matters on the one day you have a car, and nowhere else.
Evenings are what the night is for. A long table, a show, an early walk back because tomorrow starts cold. The shape of that night lives on the evenings guide, and the late ride home is why these two pages have to sit together. This page will not tell you whether the night should be a concert or a quiet block. It will tell you that a 23:10 curtain and a 22:40 last train cannot both survive if you will not take a car. Move the curtain, end the night near the venue, or name a mode that is still on the street. Do not keep the curtain and pencil in a cab "just this once."
The last day is checkout, the bags, and getting to the airport without a fake neighborhood on the way. That morning lives on the last day guide. If the only car you allow all week is that airport run, say so here and then leave the morning alone. Do not let the airport taxi become the template for every hop that looks annoying. A city dinner is not a departure. The reverse mistake is a last morning written as two metro changes with the suitcases, because nobody restated the luggage rule on the day the bags come back out.
Arrival and recovery are the landing itself, the hour you are actually in the room, the first night you are not a tourist yet. That shape lives on the arrival guide. One door-to-door ride with luggage from the airport can be the right arrival, including a taxi if you allowed it for bags and only for bags. It is not a pass for taxis at dinner for the rest of the week. This page does not rewrite how wrecked you are or what you skip. It stops the landing exception from being copied onto Thursday.
A short trip is how many dates are usable once arrival and departure are removed, and the one or two things those dates are for. That count lives on the short trip guide. A rental-car day inside a long weekend still spends one of the few usable dates. This page will not recount the weekend or decide that you came for a headland. If you did not come for the drive, the car is the first cut, not a way to see more city in less time.
A week that stays on the modes you named
ILLUSTRATIVE sketch only, not a real booking. Two adults in a city with a metro that runs its last useful train at 22:40. They walk, they take the metro, and they take the bus. No taxis. No rideshares. Last boarding is 22:15, so the walk from the stop to the hotel is done by about 22:40 and still inside the walking budget they already set. Bags change the rule: the landing and the airport morning are one vehicle each, door to door, no transfer. Thursday is the only rental car, for a headland with no useful bus, returned by 18:00 at a lot on the metro. Thursday night they are on the train again, not in the car "since we have it."
Tuesday dinner is a 19:40 table, one metro change, no bags, about 28 minutes. The generic draft for the same table says 20 minutes by taxi and calls the change annoying. The version that obeys the brief keeps the table and names the line. It does not add a car because 28 is larger than 20. Wednesday's show is the 19:00 seating, not the 21:30, because 21:30 lets out after the last train and they will not take a taxi home. The later curtain can stay only if they are sleeping in that neighborhood, which they are not. Moving the curtain is the transit rule doing its job. Keeping the curtain and writing "cab if you miss it" is the draft refusing the rule.
The same shape has a failure mode that looks helpful. ILLUSTRATIVE again. Rain on Friday, the metro is still running, and the revision inserts a rideshare "so you do not get wet," using a brand they never allowed. Wet is not a mode. The hop was a bus that stops a short walk from the door. The rideshare is the refused car with a different noun. Send Friday back. Leave Thursday's returned car where it is, which is gone. A second failure: Saturday checkout for a train to another city, bags in hand, and the sheet offers two metro changes "because you like the metro." The luggage line was one vehicle. The intercity train is a different guide. The ride to the station is this one, and it does not include stairs with a suitcase just because the week allowed stairs on days the bag was upstairs.
Red flags in the draft
"20 minutes by taxi," after you said no cars. Sometimes it is softer. "Short cab." "Easier by car." A rideshare brand where a bus number should be. The restaurant paragraph can be lovely and the hop can still be wrong. Read the movement. If the mode is one you refused, the sentence does not get to stay because the food looks good. Replace it or cut the stop.
A metro or a bus that has already stopped. Dinner at 21:30, last train 22:40, and a venue that never releases anyone on time. Or a night bus the draft invented that does not run on Sundays. Or "the metro runs late" with no clock, in a city where you have already looked up 22:40 and written it down. The red flag is a way home that is not running at the hour the plan ends. Tie the end of the night to a vehicle that exists, or end the night where you are. Do not repair a dead train with a taxi in the next sentence.
Two transfers, or one transfer, while the suitcase is with you. The landing, the airport morning, the hour between checkout and the train to the next city. "Change at Central, four minutes, easy." Easy for whom. If you would not do that corridor with the bag, the hop is a single ride or it is not that hop. The draft loves a connection because the map shows one. Your rule is allowed to ignore the map.
A rental car that survives the day you allowed. Friday breakfast includes a drive to a market the tram already serves. Saturday is "we might as well" because the rental is paid until noon and noon is after you said 18:00 the day before, which means the model extended the contract in its head. The test is the one date you named, or none.
The airport exception leaking into town. You allowed a car on the last morning so you would not miss a flight with luggage. By Wednesday that sentence has become permission for any hop the model finds dull. A rainy dinner. A museum on a hill. A grocery. The last-day page can hold the airport. It cannot hold a week of exceptions that borrowed its excuse. If the draft cites the flight as the reason for a Tuesday cab, the draft is wrong even when the flight is real.
The fix that reprints the problem. You deleted Tuesday's taxi and the revision put a rideshare on the way back from dinner. You deleted the late show and a new draft restored 21:30 with "leave early if you want the train." You asked to fix Friday's rain hop and the whole week came back with cars on three days because the prompt said "make transit easier." Easier, in that sentence, meant the mode you had refused. One day. One hop. The other days stay.
Fix one day without starting over
A single bad hop rarely needs a new trip. Regenerating tends to keep the city, forget the fence, and put a car on the hop you just removed, often on the return so the outbound can look obedient. It can also "improve" a Wednesday that was already a bus and a walk you liked. Stay in the thread. Edit the date. The other dates are not raw material.
Say the collision in modes and clocks. "Tuesday only. We do not take taxis or rideshares. Dinner stays at 19:40 if metro or bus can do it with one change and no bags. Replace the 19:10 taxi. If the allowed mode gets us there late, move the table earlier or move it closer to a stop. Do not change Wednesday. Do not bring Thursday's rental car onto Tuesday. Do not add a car because 28 minutes is slower than 20." "Make it more realistic" gets you the taxi with a sentence about traffic, which is the same plan in a more confident voice.
Restate the last ride and the luggage line in that same message if the broken day touches them. A Wednesday show that ends after 22:40 is not fixed by a faster dinner. It is fixed by an earlier curtain or by staying in that neighborhood, which you are not doing unless lodging changes on the lodging brief. A Saturday with bags is not fixed by a nicer connection. It is fixed by one vehicle. Leave walking distance, the intercity train, and the airport morning alone except where this day wrongly borrowed a car from them. A transit fix should change a mode or drop a stop. It should not redraw how far you walk or how you fly home.
The refine guide has the keep, change, and drop pattern. Add one line to it for this day: "Keep [Wednesday's bus]; change [Tuesday's taxi to metro]; drop [any rideshare and any car after Thursday 18:00]; last boarding [22:15]; do not refill the hop with a different car." When a revision sneaks the cab onto the way back, repair that line. Do not regenerate the week to see if a cleaner city appears.
How this sits with the other briefs
This page is the mode, and it stops once the allowed vehicles, the refusals, the last ride, the luggage transfers, and the one rental-car day are on the sheet. How far you walk, a travel day between cities, a day trip, the room, what the night is for, the airport morning, the landing, and how many usable days you have stay on the guides linked above. Refine is how you replace one taxi after the draft was already written.
When a preference survey is worth it
If you are willing to keep pasting the transit brief, a general assistant plus the modes and the last ride is enough for a lot of trips. A day you can actually move through matters more than a nicer paragraph about a taxi you are not going to take.
A structured profile starts to matter when every new chat turns "no cars" back into twenty minutes by taxi. Or when you delete the rideshare and revision three puts it on the way home because of rain. Or when you want a researched day-by-day that remembers the last train and the one rental day without teaching them again in every thread, including which morning is the only airport car.
One option with that shape is Dople (dopletech.com). A short preference survey can carry pace, food, and lodging alongside the ways you will and will not get around. You compare trip options shaped by that profile, and you can buy a Trip Project: a researched day-by-day meant to hold those preferences, so a night does not keep ending on a metro that has stopped or a taxi you already refused. The account and the survey start are free. Full itineraries are paid. More on that work: a comparison with ChatGPT and what the product is.
Public samples show ILLUSTRATIVE day-by-day shapes only. They are not live bookings, and they are not free Trip Projects.
If that survey path sounds useful, sign up once, when you are ready. If it does not, use the brief above in whatever chat you already have open. The mode list works either way.
What does setting transit rules for an AI itinerary mean?
It means telling the model which ways you will and will not get around, what time you will last board a vehicle, which transfers you will not make with luggage, and whether a single rental-car day is allowed. A day then stays on modes you named. It does not become a taxi you refused, or a metro that has already stopped.
Why does an AI book a taxi after I said no cars?
A smaller number of minutes looks like a better plan. "Prefer transit" loses to a 20-minute taxi unless the refusal is explicit for taxis and for rideshares, and unless a last ride time gives the night somewhere to end when the train has stopped.
What belongs in a transit brief?
The modes you will use and the modes you will not. A last ride clock, including the ride home. Transfers you will not make with a suitcase. One rental-car day, or none, with the return hour if a day exists. What to do when a line still assumes a taxi. Point at walking budget, long transit, day trips, lodging, evenings, the last day, arrival, a short trip, and refine instead of rewriting them here.
Should I regenerate when one day assumes a taxi?
No. A new draft often puts the car back and can rewrite days that were fine. Name the day, replace the hop with a mode you allowed or cut the stop, and leave the rest of the week alone. Editing in place is the refine guide.
Are the public samples real bookings?
No. Samples are ILLUSTRATIVE examples of itinerary shape. Real Trip Projects are researched per traveler after the preference survey. More context sits on the FAQ.