Submitted by Embarrassed_Lack_440 t3_yq2io6 in baltimore
Pretty much the title. I’m a bus regular commuter and I use the app every day. It tracks the bus without user data but it’s often completely wrong or off by a significant amount. So user use is the best way to get accurate times. It’s not hard to use, it’s free and it helps us all avoid the bullshit.
My goal is the be top 10 rank each month. A man has got to have goals.
Same lol. I’m there for two of my main three lines but the Lime forever evades me
Yeah it definitely could use improvements
Uhh, been using this app for years now. I. What world is it “often completely wrong or off by a significant amount”? Because that is not the experience I’ve had.
Idk about your experience but I’ve had times when it says a bus will come and not come at all. Usually it’s just off by 5-10 minutes but that messes me up at times when it comes to transferring busses. It’s also route dependent cuz the local ones are the biggest culprits of the misses.
That’s not the app. Those are ghost buses. That were once active but they take offline because they are too full.
It’s real time tracked. Like I said I’ve been using it for years at this point and I don’t have any of the troubles you do.
I agree that the Transit app can be very useful, it’s a great concept and I try to use it when I can, but I do have a couple of issues with it.
a) when it comes to navigation I find it’s kind of confusing and I still need to use google maps to make sure I know which lines to get on. This wouldn’t be as much of a problem if I wasn’t new to the area and don’t know my way around, but it would be nice if it was easier to search a location accurately and I could just use the one app.
b) My phone is old and the battery life sucks so having the Transit app using my location the whole time I’m on the bus isn’t really practical - I like that it tells me how many stops are left and I want to be able to use it for that but then I basically have to turn my phone off until I get on the bus to go home because otherwise I won’t have enough battery to make it back. I know this is more of my problem because if I had a newer phone the battery wouldn’t drain as fast but it makes using the app pretty inconvenient for me.
I have also experienced this
No, I had a new phone and the battery still drained when I used it. It’s a lot to ask of your phone while you’re literally not “using” it.
I always carry a fully charged battery pack with me just for this reason.
I’ve seen the same thing, but I think that’s when the live tracking isn’t working for whatever reason or there was a cancelled bus, so the app reverts to the posted bus schedule. If it has the signal icon next to the time then it’s live but if it’s not there then it’s way less accurate.
The Go feature was critical when buses/light rail/subway/MARC didn't have tracking, but they all have it now. If you catch a bus that is not tracking on the app, then definetly turn on Go. When all buses started getting GPS units in 2017 and 2018, it was a game changer. I remember texting that number to find out when buses were coming, and almost none of them were tracking. Thats not the case today.
Now, we still deal with no show buses, or buses that are tracking and then stop, or the unannounced diversion, but TransitApp wont help with that.
More about MTA getting GPS on all modes: https://ggwash.org/view/87255/the-mta-now-has-real-time-tracking-on-all-of-its-modes-heres-how-they-did-it
I still use it as the live data and cut-run and projected cut-run data is way better than other options (thought not always accurate still), but the trip planning has gotten terrible for me. It ignores buses that are closest to me and that it even shows as live and on-time; just doesn't show them as options when trip planning, and tries to give me completely non-sensical routings (like walking 20 minutes) etc. Don't know what's up with that.
jstreim t1_ivm6zo3 wrote
That’s a cool tip if true. I generally use the app, and It’s good to know that it goes to to good use!