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Citymapper
- pythux 7y agoWow that looks really useful, I did not know of this app. Did anyone here on HN use it successfully? Having a single app to allow navigating cities and buying tickets is something I have been wishing for lately (especially in cities where there is no way to buy tickets either online or via an app).
- cstross 7y agoI use Citymapper extensively on trips to cities it covers. It's at its best in London (where, IIRC, the dev team is based): there, it's a life-saver. It's also effective in other first-rank anglophone world cities, such as New York. I've found its coverage can be patchy/incomplete in some cities, presumably because the data sources they aggregate are incomplete or inaccurate: at its worst, it degrades gracefully to the state of an offline maps app with a public transit route-finder. It has been around for some years and they used to integrate with Lyft: I think the idea is to tie into transit pass apps as a way to monetize their service.
- egwor 7y agoI once used it in Berlin (I'm not from Berlin) when there were unexpected line closures/delays. I could explain to the locals what was going on and the best routes to use. That was simply using the app. It had more info than the local staff/info screens.
- Brakenshire 7y agoI used it in New York, and it also knew about line closures which other apps weren’t aware of. One thing it’s bad at (ironically because it was made in London) is the data model for Tube stations, it seems to think a Tube station is a point, whereas they often sprawl underground over large distances. It doesn’t have much of a concept that you can be walking for 10 minutes to connect between lines, and will make dodgy suggestions on that basis.
- 02thoeva 7y agoThe app certainly does take into account transfer times between lines. If you also require accessible transport it'll further take into account the transfer times by measuring the amount of lifts you need to take.
- ljm 7y agoIn London you can buy discounted weekly passes through them now. Working from home for just one day will negate the cost saving though, especially if you’re out in zone 4. I don’t know how they undercut TfL on the price but I presume they’re doing something tricky with redistributing monthly or annual passes.
- Matsta 7y agoThey pre-purchase annual oyster cards and sell them back to you at a weekly rate. They recently got Apple Pay which is really useful with the express travel option so you don't need to use touch/face id to tap in. They still have consistent problems with randomly charging you random amounts on top of the weekly cost. It's a normal MasterCard so you can check it on the TfL website, but I've had to work with them a few times to get refunded from random extra charges (usually 0.50 to sometimes 7 quid) which they can't explain why they happen.
- somewhereoutth 7y agoI live in Lisbon, Portugal. I use CityMapper with public transport to get around, and it is very good - I particularly appreciate the 'Get Me Home' button. Residents here can get a monthly pass on ALL public transport in the greater Lisbon region for 40 Euros, so I guess that helps too!
- ggambetta 7y agoPretty much everyone uses it in London. I've continued using it in Madrid with great success. It's generally very, very good in the cities where it is available. This is a Google Maps complement, not a replacement, as Citymapper only does navigation within a city, so you can't plan inter-city travel. Also it's optimized for A -> B navigation, not so much for "city discovery", travel research, or more complex itineraries, for which I keep using Google Maps.
- jordz 7y agoI’ve used it in NY and Tokyo. Fantastic app.
- eb0la 7y agoThe fun part this guys figured out there was demand for a bus line in London just looking at the data, and Transport for London awarded them a licence.
- dewey 7y agoI use it all the time when I'm in a city where they have coverage but Apple Maps doesn't. It exists for a long time already.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y agoWorks quite well in Singapore, excepting the occasional glitch with walking routes. And noticeably better than Google Maps at finding public transport connections.
- StavrosK 7y agoI used it in Manchester and it has hands down the best app UX I've ever used. It did just the right thing at the right time. Shows you exactly where you are regarding your stops, vibrates when it's time to get off, keeps working when you have no data or GPS, and asks you if you want to resume your previous trip if you open it after you close it during a trip. I am extremely extremely impressed by how absolutely perfect the UX of this app is. I don't know who designed it, but congrats to them. If you haven't used it yet, you must.
- bchanudet 7y agoI use it daily in Lyon. I like the notifications sent every morning to tell me which bus is the fastest, as my commute to work can be done in different ways. The official app from the public transport network was revamped last month, and now copies a lot the UX of Citymapper[1], albeit with worse performance. The app use some weird caching system, and sometimes, even after refreshing twice, you don't get the correct timetable, and it's especially bad at reporting traffic alerts. Citymapper never failed me like this. [1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.micropole.android.tcl_mobile https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.micropole....
- ledneb 7y agoI love it when I'm in a city with Citymapper. I've used it to get around Paris, Hamburg and Berlin. It's slick, fun to use and has nailed multi-modal transport - especially since it considers walking a thing which humans are capable of. I still resort to instructional YouTube videos + ticket machines for tickets, though.
- simplesleeper 7y agoI work for Transport for London and I advise people to use citymapper rather than the official TfL tools.
- jonplackett 7y agoIt’s also really useful for seeing when transport will arrive. Just going into the map mode you will see icons for bus stops, stations, trams etc and you can tap on them to see all the arrivals. Great feature.
- Pamar 7y agoI use it often, mostly Berlin and Hamburg (but also Paris, Tokyo and Lisbon): I do not own a car so I mostly walk or use public transportation and the way they handle subways and other types of PT is the best for me.
- beejiu 7y agoI use Citymapper over Google Maps all the time in London, and in other cities where it exists. Last week, I landed in Brussels and needed to catch the train. Google Map's best route was a 40 minute wait for the next train. I opened Citymapper and it suggested a train that, although timetabled for 5 minutes ago, was actually delayed by 10 minutes. The data coming into Citymapper seems to be much more reliable. Google Maps is a great general tool that works anywhere, but Citymapper puts great attention to work perfectly within cities.
- manigandham 7y agoIn large urban cities, it's the best app available and far superior to Google Maps. Multiple transit options with real-time info, delays, prices, and solid offline support. Shows exactly where you are on your trip in terms of signs and stops. Also has little details like which exit facing which direction to leave when getting out at a station which makes all the difference.
- _rs 7y agoI've used it in NYC and Boston - it works really well.
- RBerenguel 7y agoExtensively in London, regularly in Barcelona area and last time I was in Amsterdam. I recommend it to anyone here (Barcelona) since it is not widely known.
- Havoc 7y agoLondon all the time. Very accurate. Barcelona and Paris seem fine too
- david_p 7y agoEveryone uses this is Paris by now. They are especially gaining traction in the last weeks since people use it to know how to reach a place despite all the strikes via whatever means of transportations are currently working. Integrating real time city bikes data and real time bus times is the killer feature for such a situation.
- elcomet 7y agoAgreed, they give better results than official apps (that tell you to take metros that are not currently driving because of the strike).
- noname120 7y agoI have a different experience. Just yesterday Google Maps and Citymapper advertized me trips with transports that didn't run (lines N and U) because of the strikes. The official app Transilien only provided me trips that actually existed.
- elcomet 7y agoOkay, I was using vianavigo, maybe transilien is better (too many official apps..)
- jedimastert 7y agoCurrently in my home town for the holidays, but I'll take a look see when I get back to Boston after the new year. There's an app called "Transit" that does something that looks similar, I'll compare them.
- maest 7y agoThanks for letting us know.
- codetrotter 7y agoLooks like they have quite a few locations. https://citymapper.com/cities https://citymapper.com/cities Still, the one they selected for me is in a neighboring country even, because there is none closer. I think in that case it would be better to state that none of their locations are nearby. Because for a moment I thought that that location was the only one in the app, which had me confused why it would be discussed on HN if the app was for that one place only. On the page I linked above one can vote to add new locations. I doubt mine will end up in the app anyway though – there are not very many people in my country, and only a few people in the city I live. Even our capital city might be too small.
- jonplackett 7y agoHow the hell do so many people not know this app exists? This has been a page 1 home screen icon on my iPhone for years!
- ptato 7y agoI don't see any advantage this has over plain Google Maps for Madrid, other than using a bit less Google in my life. Will try it out.
- 0b0001 7y agoI've been researching why my cities public transport isn't available in Google Maps. Turns out that the (mostly public) transport company assumes itself in competition to app vendors such as Google Maps and Citymapper; the bus company "doesn't own the whole experience anymore". So, while they give access to static routes with some delay, real-time data or accurate data is out of reach. How do companies like Citymapper approach that issue? Do they usually pay fees to the transport companies, or do transport companies in the supported cities all give API access? A proper app would definitely benefit public transport in my area. (word has it that my area's transport tariffs are way to complicated to be mapped onto Google's API) [Edit: to be more concise; the transportation company doesn't want 3rd parties to offer an app. How does Citymapper approach that?]
- larrymyers 7y agoAs long as a public transportation organization can expose their data as GTFS, then most transit applications should be able to provide routing. https://developers.google.com/transit https://developers.google.com/transit This is what the CTA and Metra do in Chicago. Even Metra, not known for it's technical prowess, provides a GTFS realtime feed.
- andybak 7y agoI don't think that's what the person you were replying to was asking. More "how do they get the data from cities that don't want to give it to app vendors like Google"
- larrymyers 7y agoIf it's public transportation and run by a local government and the transit data isn't publicly available, then it's likely matter of civic engagement and using your power as a voter to make it happen.
- lozenge 7y agoBy spending VC capital.
- orf 7y agoCity mapper is used extensively in London, it’s really really good. They are/where expanding into some form of Citymapper busses which is really interesting. I had the chance to interview there, but I was put off by the absolutely terrible Glassdoor reviews[1] including consistent reports about the CEO and the internal culture. Given that, I’m not too hopeful about the future of Citymapper. Right now they have a head start on others, but I don’t see anything to justify the 300 million pound valuation. 1. https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Citymapper-Reviews-E1030688.htm https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Citymapper-Reviews-E1030...
- blowski 7y ago> I was put off by the absolutely terrible Glassdoor reviews[1] including consistent reports about the CEO and the internal culture I'm genuinely surprised by that. I knew a couple of people who worked there, and both said they loved working there.
- zaphod4prez 7y agoSame, I know someone who worked there early on and they speak highly of the company & the culture
- stereobit 7y agoI had the same experience years ago.
- jasoncartwright 7y agoGosh, do people rely on Glassdoor? To turn down an interview? From my experience it's an outlet for people with a personal gripe and far from a good source of internal information about a company.
- hluska 7y agoYes, people do rely on Glassdoor. I am one of them. I only pay attention to the cons listed in positive reviews. Doing that has saved me from a couple of truly awful environments.
- half-kh-hacker 7y agoHere in the UK, some schools mandate unpaid 1-3 week work placements. I actually applied for a place at Citymapper and got a promising reply, but eventually I guess it fell through the cracks because I didn't receive any communication after. It would have been really cool to see what goes on in a focused tech company whose product I actually use (and like), but I guess these things happen.
- hluska 7y agoHere is some unsolicited advice from a 42 year old who has spent a career in tech. If you are genuinely interested in a company and get one promising reply, keep following up until you hear 'no'. We were hunter/gatherers for a long time. Hunt the word 'no'. This isn't an excuse, more a mournful confession. But in startups, things like unpaid work placements tend to fall fairly low on the list of priorities. It isn't that you're not valuable, it's just that in startups, your attention is divided between hundreds of highly valuable things. If you genuinely want a job, be a squeaky wheel.
- half-kh-hacker 7y agoSorry for being a bit late with the reply; I did consider following up, but didn't due to other factors, and found a placement elsewhere. (mainly, my distance from London.) This is great advice, though. Thanks.
- baby 7y agoEverybody used it in London, I couldn’t get used to it since I mainly use Google maps. In Lyon, France though google maps doesn’t work so I recently gave citymapper a try and the interactive route where you can swipe through steps is actually really cool!
- lucasverra 7y agobest transportation app, sadly boot time in my upgraded ios device is slower than maps or google maps.
- cdubzzz 7y agoThere is also Transit, which I have used and liked for about a year now — https://transit.app/ https://transit.app/ I use it in Seattle and have found it to be very accurate and (most of the time) fast. I have a mildy annoying commute where I often need or want to switch buses and I have to quickly look up if a particular route goes where I am going. Transit has been good for that (in addition to regular point A to point B stuff).
- zmk_ 7y agoI like using citymapper in cities where they have coverage, however, on Android (I found) that it simply destroys your battery. In comparison Google Maps is more gentle on memory. In Poland, a great alternative (that predates citymapper) is jakdojade.pl that does inter-/intra-city transport and ticketing where possible.
- sleavey 7y agoSimilar: OpenRouteService (https://maps.openrouteservice.org/ https://maps.openrouteservice.org/), based on OpenStreetMap.
- spodek 7y agoI tried it for New York City and prefer using OpenStreetMap but don't see subway directions on it. Am I missing something or are subway directions not available in it yet?
- prplnrpl 7y agoI worked at Citymapper. The quiet, grim truth of the place is that everyone there is gritting their teeth trying to do work they're passionate about in the face of an exec team who are all gritting their teeth trying to succeed in the face of a CEO who is legitimately abusive toward the people around him. Everyone is scared of the guy for reasons I don't really understand. Also a lot of the current/ex employees have shares that they/we want to turn into real money, so there is a perverse incentive to keep quiet on the off chance that CM's CEO figures out how to make it a real business. Plus, a lot of our friends still work there. We don't want to shit on them and make their lives even worse. For context, from one of the cofounders, I had it explained to me that the CEO sometimes loses it and screams at people. Curses at them. Belittles them. It's something everyone manages. I didn't believe it until it happened to me. And again. And again. Everyone tip toes around him. I've watched good people come and go from CM for years now. The best people don't stay. They've gone to DeepMind, Monzo, Lyft, Facebook -- other great companies. The people who stay at CM are mostly too scared to leave or beaten down enough to believe all companies are that bad. The Glassdoor reviews are legitimate. It's a toxic work place. (edit: clarified the point about shares)
- ebg13 7y ago> The people who stay at CM are mostly too scared to leave How does this happen to people? Are there really no other options or something? Are they barrel-bottom candidates on their final shot? I just can't imagine feeling like I need my employer more than it needs me.
- prplnrpl 7y agoI don't have a good answer for you. A lot of people have left to much better environments and yet a subset stick around painfully aware of how bad it is. It doesn't make sense. Though my understanding of the psychology of toxic environments is that the longer you're in them, the more you normalise them. Lot of Stockholm Syndrome going on there. Lot of people claiming "of it's not that bad" and then tip toeing around all day while being micromanaged.
- EmilLondon 7y ago
- tjwds 7y agoCTRL+F'd Philadelphia / Philly and no results, so: I love this app for getting around Philly. It's spot on for planning out the best time to leave to get somewhere and I really like its UX. I have saved so much time, hassle, and money when following its suggested routes … whereas with Google Maps or just my current knowledge of Philly transit I would have taken a worse transit option or just taken a cab. Try it out!
- jnetterf 7y agoCitymapper is excellent, especially for short trips that can be done in many different ways. Sometimes, for longer trips, Citymapper shows “Uber” or “long walk” as part of a route. In those cases, I would generally prefer to bike, without a bike share. Is there a multimodal transit app that includes transit + cycling?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- loftyal 7y agoI don't really understand Citymapper, everything in that app is available on Google Maps. What am I missing?
- avel 7y agoCitymapper has more features, some of which Google Maps has actually copied. They still have some more unique features. I'm not sure which of the following have now made it to Google Maps but here are my favorites: * Recommendations for routes that involve combining bike sharing with transit. (They call it multimodal labs) * Commute alerts in case of disruptions. * Map with all the transit features nearby. * Shows car sharing options as well (such as Zipcar), in addition to Uber / Lyft of course. * If you start a "Go" trip you get notifications on which station to get off at. On android it also works great with a smartwatch (full support for Android Wear).
- cdubzzz 7y agoAs a user of Transit (an app similar to Citymapper), I find it odd when I see people fumbling with Google/Apple Maps for transit. The first thing I see when I open Transit is all the nearby transit stop and lines available. That alone is enough to make it more valuable that non-transit specific apps when I need information very quickly.
- taejo 7y agoIn my city, Google Maps treats all bus, tram, and subway stops as being at the same point, so it can't help you find the correct bus stop (many subway stops have dozens of connecting bus lines distributed around all exits of the station). Even when it doesn't make you miss the last connection home, it sucks spending ten minutes looking for the right bus stop. This is the fault of the data provided by the transport companym and even their own app gets it wrong iirc, but somehow CM has gathered the necessary data and even knows which end of the subway train to get on to get to the right exit to find the right bus stop.
- lozenge 7y ago* Trip pricing (although Google also has it in some regions) * Offline static maps for your city * Step free and "avoiding rain" routes
- solarkraft 7y agoI tried it in a german mid-sized-to-large city (Dortmund) and the result wasn't too great. Google Maps is superior, both in data and (maybe only slightly) in UX.
- dguo 7y agoI use Citymapper whenever I'm in NYC. In my experience, it's much better than Google Maps at providing alternate routes and predicting how long travel will take. It also has many small touches that add up. My favorite ones are that Citymapper will tell you the optimal subway entrance to enter/exit and even which section of the train (front, middle, or back) to get on based on which one is closest to the exit in your destination stop.
- wildfire 7y agoLike many others, I have used CityMapper extensively in London, Berlin, Paris, Sydney, etc. With public transport, and using the same data Google Maps has access to, it just gives better results except for walking. I don't quite understand how the walking component of the routing is always so bad compared to Google Maps. I routinely end the trip when the walking section is on, and switch to Google Maps because it is so much better than CityMapper. If they could fix that, they would have a killer app on their hands.
- seveneightn9ne 7y agoYeah, it's sent me around the back of buildings more than once.
- clement_b 7y agoA few cool things (not necessarily exclusive to Citymapper). - Saving favorite places to get directions faster - Relying on their indications to use the best tube carriage and best exit for fastest exit / interchange (can save minutes!) - Enjoying gamification & stats on your trips using the 'Go' mode. This will the give you indications about how your daily journey compares to others, and the distribution of your transits by mode (e.g., tube vs bus vs train) - Sharing your trip with someone - Switching City when travelling - Not using Google Maps for everything
- rossmohax 7y agoWhat every single transportation app fails at is recommending a route which is technically worse, but less crowded or otherwise more preferrable. I dont mind commute taking 10-20% longer, if I can take a seat, or trade changes undeground for changes overgrond or avoid connections with high opportunity cost, where being late cost you 30 mins wait for a next train.
- ganonm 7y agoSo if currently the recommended route is simply a function of journey time, could a map have a more sophisticated utility function that takes into account other variables like number of connections, mode of transport and pollution levels etc. Initially the weights of each variable would be unknown (100% to minimising transit time as a sane default) but over time would infer the weights by offering you a range of choices and learning from your preferred selections. One major flaw with this is that perhaps the map system relies on caching precomputed partial solutions which would be impossible if, in general, every user has slightly different preferences. I've noticed that (AFAICT) Google maps doesn't take into account individual walking speeds when calculating routes for example.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y agoIn addition to the default "Best route", Google Maps has "fewer transfers", "less walking" and "wheelchair accessible" modes.
- rossmohax 7y agothat is a step in right direction, but still doesn't allow me to express my route preferences
- lozenge 7y agoGoogle has started asking me how crowded the bus is so I guess this is coming. In London you can pretty much choose a slower or cheaper route and it will be less busy. The fastest Tube lines attract more journeys.