Transit App

This is the second blog post in what we hope will be a recurring series here at Tunnel Time. As we strive to provide our visitors with the best transportation information, we realize that not everything is about tickets, riding and the small details we focus on. We had a blast writing the Offline Google Maps blog post and wanted to write more like that. This series will be dedicated to the tools and services that make travel easier, specifically in the transportation space, but we may venture out into the general travel space as time goes on.

Today we’re going to talk about our favourite public transportation app: Transit. Transit is the best for two simple reasons: unique and well executed features all wrapped up in a great app design. Not to mention, they’re also from Canada ❤️ 🇨🇦. Let’s hop into some of my favourite features.

Nearby Lines and Routes 🏙 🚇

I think one of the strongest “features” with Transit isn’t really a feature, it’s more of a product design choice. When you first launch the app, you’re immediately presented with transportation options nearby. What subway, streetcar, bus and train routes are you near right now and when is the next subway, streetcar, bus or train arriving. This seems like a pretty simple thing to accomplish but when you think about EVERY OTHER DIRECTIONS APP you first need to enter in (at least) your destination, wait for a search to return results and then you get to see this information. This is great for two reasons:

Once I become familiar with a city’s transportation, the question is less about: How do I get from A to B? and more: How do I get to B as fast as possible?
You can often get to your destination via multiple routes. If you were (for example) half way between two different subway lines, wouldn’t you want to get on the one that is arriving first?

Transit’s beautiful design (don’t worry, we’ll talk about the design later in more detail) presents this information instantly so that if you are familiar with the routes and lines near you, you can quickly see which one is arriving first.

Of course you’re just one tap away from typing in your destination and getting a list of the best routing options, but the routes in Transit are unique. These routes take into account real time vehicle data, not traditional schedule charts and Transit’s vehicle data is much better than everyone else in this area.

GO 🚦

GO is the name of Transit’s navigation feature. Navigation is pretty common among modern mapping and direction apps, but GO has an advantage: real time vehicle data. “But Cameron” you say, “So many apps have real time data, it’s a pretty standard feature these days”. You would be right dear reader, but you’re also a little wrong. It’s not your fault though. Many apps do have “real time” vehicle data, and for the most part it’s pretty ok. The problem is that this data is often provided by the transportation operator itself, and transportation operators aren’t known for having… how do we say… reliable real time traffic data. Maybe it’s a super cloudy day, or your bus is going down a street with really high buildings. That will throw off the GPS device onboard that phones home its location. “Ok, Cam, then how does Transit do it?” Transit has all that data, but they also crowd source GPS data from people currently using the Transit app. When you are using Transit GO for directions, you will see a little number of how many other Transit users are benefitting from your real time data.

Integration with Ride Sharing and Bike Share 🚲 🚙

Toronto Bike Share passes available inside Transit

Transit isn’t just about public transportation. Like Tunnel Time, the Transit app provides information on bicycle and scooter sharing services as well as ride sharing apps. This feature combined with route specific service notifications can be crucial to avoid delays and closures. For example: Let’s say you’re preferred route has a service delay. In the Transit app, you can see which bicycle or scooter sharing stations or dock-less vehicles are nearby. Depending on the provider, you can even go ahead and reserve and rent the bike or scooter right in the Transit app. The same is true for ride sharing services like Uber. Uber availability and requesting a ride is a feature right in the app.

Offline Support ⛔️ 📡

This feature is probably my favourite. Not only did I enjoy reading the engineering write up on the Transit Blog, but the result is fantastic. The Transit app lets you search transit routing directions while offline. Imagine this: you’re riding the subway and your car stops between stations for a service issue. You don't know if you’re gonna make your planned transfer anymore. While sitting underground with no cell service, you can search Transit for alternate directions to your location. You may have missed your original transfer to bus, but maybe there’s another route to get there on time. How does this work? I highly suggest checking out their blog post on the feature.

Design 🎨

Features are great. Even more important, one could argue, is how those features are implemented and offered to the user. I really appreciate great design and user experience and Transit has both. What is the point of offline support if it’s hidden away behind 3 layers of menus? What is the point of live vehicle data if it’s not displayed to you in an easy to see and understand manner? The Transit app’s visual design language takes these great feats of engineering and makes them easily accessible to the common user. Let’s have a look:

Blog

Not really a feature, but Transit has a pretty great blog over at: https://medium.com/transit-app. I’ve already mentioned their article on offline trip planning. Here are some other good ones:

Wrap Up

So Transit is pretty great. You can probably tell that I really enjoy this app. You can find Transit on the iOS or Android app stores and over at their website: transitapp.com

Do you want more of these types of articles? Let me know over on the contact page, or on Twitter.