According to a Twitter post, the uber-useful One Bus Away service will soon have its own native iPhone App. Even better, the app is entirely open source so programming geeks can add their own features. A follow-up tweet states that the app will have support for Maps and GPS — logical inclusions that’ll surely be useful for users of the bus tracking website.
How many times a day do you use One Bus Away?
I use it every time I take a bus. But their mobile site is already pretty good for use on the iPhone – I’m even more excited thinking that it will become an app!
I think that the gps will be the most useful feature. Now that I have my stop
numbers memorized I will not have to type them in while I am deciding which stop to run to at night.
Thanks, I didn’t know it was open source! I just installed it to my jailbroken phone, it’s a nice app!
Multiple times every day! It has made Metro’s timetables (which were never accurate to actual bus arrival times) a thing of the past. Knowing when the bus is coming makes waiting seem shorter.
One thing I’ve noticed that could be improved with the service is “NOW” often lasts for 4 or more minutes…covering the bus arriving, waiting and then leaving each stop. It would be more accurate to only display “NOW” when the bus is literally at the stop.
Also, it would be nice if there were a link to the route map for each bus displayed. Hopefully that will come with the iPhone App.
If every iPhone can display arrival times, why can’t the information boards in the DSTT?
I usually use it in the evening after work when I go places and going home.
The data OBA uses (from Metro) is not accurate enough to know a bus is at the stop. The system is not GPS-based, yet. On many occasions, I’ve seen a bus “arriving in less than 1 minute” to have already departed or a bus “arriving in 4 minutes” that never came.
They’re working on the DSTT boards and will have them up and running soon. I hope no later than the end of this year.
Oran is right… arrival times are fuzzy at best. I think it’s a combination of the relative accuracy of the current positioning technology and the fact that position information is only radioed back every minute or two. As a UI fudge, I make the NOW window a little fuzzy.
So excited about this!
Wouldn’t it be great to have digital readouts at every stop? I know, budget crunches and all…
Or at least every major transfer point.
OneBusAway is how I justify the cost of internet access on my phone. Reading blogs, newspapers et. cetera while on the bus is just a nice perk.
Same thing here. When I’m running for the bus, that internet access is valuable–mostly for OBA. As with Anne, Google Reader, Facebook Mobile and Twitter are perks. OBA is the real reason.
My family uses OneBusAway constantly. We use the phone number and the website–no smartphones for us yet.
I use the simple text interface before I leave work most days to check for possible bus delays.
I also use http://www.mybus.org/ to send SMS queries from my phone.
OBA also has a text message interface, FYI.
Good to know… I use the rider information line at (206) BUS-TIME. It usually takes more time to get the information than to wait for a delayed bus, and the hilarious part is when it tells me to record the stop number for future reference. Yeah, I have my pen and paper right here while I’m waiting on Third Avenue.
I use it every day. Its the first bookmark on my iphone. The web version if already good on the iphone, so I’m stoked to see the app
I use it every time I take a bus.