fbpx
News

Do you take public transit? Move it with Moovit [App of the Week]

This community-supported transit app features real time arrival information

Moovit

If you’re anything like me, you take a lot of public transit.

In a city like Toronto, with such a variety of transit options, you’ll often find yourself taking two or more types of public transit. My commute spans three different vehicles from three different transit agencies. While Googling when the next bus is coming can sometimes be an effective (if aggravating) experience, there are better solutions.

Enter Moovit, a transit app on iOS and Android. MobileSyrup has written about Moovit before as the app continued to add features and support for Canadian cities that other apps just don’t have.

Searching routes in Moovit

Since MobileSyrup last wrote about Moovit, the app has received a facelift. Along with a fresh new look, Moovit gained some renown, solidifying itself as king of public transit.

Earlier this year, Moovit was nominated for the category of ‘Best build for billions experience’ at the 2018 Google Play Awards. It’s not hard to see why. Moovit makes getting around easy for over 2200 cities, including 31 Canadian cities (the full list can be found here).

Additionally, the app has support for all kinds of different types of transit. In the GTA alone, I’ve been able to plan routes using GO trains, TTC streetcars, Uber and even bike shares.

Why is Moovit king of public transit?

Service alerts on Moovit

Moovit is quite customizable. It features a number of route options, from ones with less walking to ones with less transfers. You can select from a number of different types of transit if you’re looking for a specific way to get around.

Users can set favourite stations, lines and make quick options for home and work. The app also features a wealth of offline public transit maps users can download.

Moovit also features an alerts section that makes it easy to see delays and service updates with a tap. Alerts is one of the many community driven features, where the over 150 million users can become ‘Mooviters‘ and help update information. Mooviters, currently made up of about 200,000 members, can also add lines, stations and schedules.

Moovit search and Be My Eyes partnership

Moovit claims to be adding a new city every 15 hours. As its network and community grows, so does its ability to serve accurate public transit information. The app features some incredible features, like real time arrival alerts for supported networks (TTC streetcars for example) that let you know exactly when to be at your stop. The app also features Live Ride, which alerts you when you arrive at your stop so you can focus on other things.

On top of all this, the transit app has partnered with Be My Eyes, a free service that connects people with a visual impairment to sighted volunteers over a live video call for assistance.

The partnership is working to make public transit more accessible for blind and low vision transit users. Be My Eyes was awarded best accessibility experience app in the 2018 Google Play Awards.

Overall, Moovit is a fantastic public transit solution with plenty of options for everyone. Moovit is available on iOS and Android.

Related Articles

Comments