A little while ago, I hacked together a custom action for the Google Assistant that would take the publicly available time tables for the NYC Ferry and answer questions about the routes and schedules.

I’ve never released it publicly. So far, I’ve just kept it for personal use as it’s often faster than pulling out my phone, loading the NYC Ferry app and navigating to the right sub-page for schedules. Voice search can be powerful for the right kinds of tasks. If you can simply ask “When’s the next boat from Dumbo to South Williamsburg?” that can flatten a lot of otherwise tedious menus.