The problem with traditional canvassing lists
Traditional voter canvassing lists are built around geographic boundaries: precincts, wards, zip codes, or hand-drawn map regions. These boundaries are administratively convenient but don't reflect how canvassers actually move through a neighborhood. A precinct boundary might span a busy highway that takes 20 minutes to cross on foot, making half the list logistically inefficient to canvas in a single shift.
What is travel-time targeting?
Travel-time targeting builds a voter list based on how long it actually takes to travel from a specific starting point — a campaign office, event venue, parking location, or volunteer staging area. Instead of asking "who lives in this geographic box?" it asks "who can a canvasser realistically reach within a 15-minute walk?"
This produces lists that are denser, more walkable, and more efficient per volunteer hour — a critical factor when canvassing time is scarce, as it is in every campaign.
How cicada.run implements travel-time targeting
cicada.run's map interface allows campaigns to enter any address and pull all registered voters within a specified travel time and mode: 15-minute walk, 10-minute drive, 20-minute bike ride, or custom combinations. The resulting contact list is then immediately available for canvassing, call time, or export.
This feature is particularly valuable for: planning door-knocking shifts from a volunteer's starting point, optimizing GOTV canvassing in the final days of a campaign, planning event-day outreach around a venue location, and ensuring that canvassing packets stay within realistic walking distance for each volunteer.
Practical tips for travel-time canvassing
When building travel-time canvassing lists, start from where your volunteers will actually be — not from the center of your district. A 15-minute walk from a campaign office in a dense urban area might reach 200 voters; the same radius from a suburban staging point might reach 40. Use travel time to calibrate the right list size for each shift. For multi-shift canvassing days, create separate lists for each staging location so every canvasser has a realistic and efficient route from the moment they start.