Transit Is the Best App for Navigating Public Transportation

I am a big fan of applications that give you the information you want at a glance while staying out of your way. Transit is an excellent example.

This free application is perfect if you find yourself waiting for a bus, a train or any other mass of transport. Open the application and you will see the next departure hours for all lines near where you stand. You can press any line to see a more detailed schedule. You can also also see where the next train or bus is right now, thanks to real -time data.

All this removes anxiety from using public transport. Instead of wondering when the next bus will arrive – or if The next bus arrives – I can watch my phone and know exactly how long I need to wait. I live near Portland, Oregon and I use this feature every time I go to town – it is just nice to know when the next train will arrive.

But the demand also saved me on a trip. Once, while the bicycle north of Victoria, British Columbia, one of my tires went flat. Back to the city would have taken hours and I had no cell signal. The Transit application, miraculously, had a chatting version of the bus schedule and indicated a nearby stop. I caught a bus 15 minutes later and returned quickly to the city center.

Credit: Justin Pot

Even external emergencies, transit makes much less intimidating new cities via public transport. In addition to real -time departures, there is also a way to ask for directions, in the same way that you can google or Apple Maps. And although these applications both offer transit directions, the Transit application does a better job to offer several routes.

This application also facilitates modification for how you drive. For example, I am happy to walk for a few kilometers if it means avoiding a long past connection seated at a bus stop. Transit allows you to configure how long you are ready to walk and how fast you walk. There is also a very large management to combine the bicycle and the transit, something that Google and Apple Maps do not really offer. The result is that you can usually move faster using transit instructions once you have configured it to match your preferences.

Transit works in 951 cities around the world, mainly in North America and Europe. There is a paid version, called Royale, which gives access to things like more complete hours and personalization options. These features are offered free of charge in certain cities, a fact that I learned during a recent visit to Grand Rapids, Michigan. If you are a regular public transport user, or even just someone who likes to use public transport when you visit a new city, I strongly recommend that you try this application.