Reserving a time block in a calendar application to account for a travel time between geographic locations of appointments

A computer-implemented method for identifying a travel time between appointments, the method comprising:

• identifying a first appointment in a calendar application;
• identifying a time of the first appointment;
• receiving, from a user, a request to schedule a second appointment at a requested time;
• identifying a geographic location of the first appointment and a geographic location of the second appointment;
• determining, with at least one processor, an expected mode of transportation between the geographic locations of the first and second appointments, wherein the expected mode of transportation is determined based on at least one of keywords or geographic locations associated with the first and second appointments;
• identifying a route extending between the geographic location of the first appointment and the geographic location of the second appointment, based on the expected mode of transportation;
• identifying a travel time associated with the route, based on the expected mode of transportation;
• determining an amount of unscheduled time between the first appointment and the second appointment;
• receiving a plurality of event information updates associated with the expected mode of travel, wherein the frequency in receiving each update of the plurality of updates increases with the approach of reserved time block;
• determining a delayed travel time based on the received event information updates associated with the expected mode of travel;
• determining whether the amount of unscheduled time exceeds the delayed travel time associated with the expected mode of travel;
• and
• if it is determined that the delayed travel time differs from the identified travel time by a threshold amount,
• determining one or more alternative routes extending between the geographic location of the first appointment and the geographic location of the second appointment, wherein the one or more alternative routes is unaffected by the events associated with the received event information updates that indicated a delay in the identified travel time for the expected mode of travel, and
• providing the determined one or more alternative routes to the user.

A computer-implemented method for identifying unscheduled time between two appointment entries in a calendar other than travel time and presenting options to a user for using the unscheduled time, the method comprising:

• identifying at least one of a first appointment entry in a calendar associated with a user and a second appointment entry in the calendar associated with the user, the first appointment entry being associated with a first geographic location, the second appointment entry being associated with a second geographic location that is different than the first geographic location, and a starting time of the second appointment entry being subsequent to an ending time of the first appointment entry;
• identifying a travel time entry corresponding to a travel time between the first geographic location associated with the first appointment entry and the second geographic location associated with the second appointment entry;
• determining whether a time between the ending time of the first appointment entry and the starting time of the second appointment entry is more than a threshold greater than time required by the travel time entry;
• and
• conditioned on determining that the time between the ending time of the first appointment entry and the starting time of the second appointment entry is more than a threshold greater than the time required by the travel time entry:
• identifying unscheduled time, other than travel time, between the first appointment entry and the second appointment entry;
• accessing information related to interests of the user;
• receiving a geographical designation proximate to a travel route between the first geographic location and the second geographic location;
• identifying one or more options for using the identified unscheduled time based on the information related to interests of the user along the travel route and within the geographical designation;
• and
• presenting the identified one or more options to the user.