12 ms·

Citymapper is what happens when you understand user experience

355 points by ryanwhitney 12y ago

smackfu 12y ago
I would sure hope that a site that only works in seven cities would be better than a site that works worldwide. Otherwise what's the point?
- zo1 12y ago
  What about a site that only works in one browser? (Ok, just trying to be catchy there. It works on 2/3 of the browsers I have installed to test with.)
keehun 12y ago
Great, but the fact that Citymapper is only available in eight cities makes it completely useless to those outside of those cities. From this post, however, it does seem like a very well put together experience.
bonaldi 12y ago
Citymapper has this bizarre flaw (in London at least) where it relies on average times to give you journey times. So, for example, if your train takes 10 minutes to reach your destination, leaves your local station every 30 minutes and you've just missed one, CityMapper will show an estimated journey time as 25 minutes (avg wait 15 minutes + 10 min journey), instead of the actual 39. On multi-train journeys like many Londoners have, that error compounds quickly, and it can make choosing the fastest route near-impossible. And I don't know why they do it, because they have all the timetable data (including live timetables).
- andrewingram 12y ago
  They also have harder problems to solve when it comes to buses. During the tube strikes, it was incredibly frustrating to have all the route suggestions involve getting the 29 in Camden. Anyone who's attempted to get the 29 from Camden late at night will know what I'm talking about. Essentially they need to start including knowledge not just about how frequent transport is supposed to be, but the typical number you'll have to miss before you can get on. For the 29 in Camden this number is around 5. But, as Citymapper becomes more ubiquitous within each city, this becomes a solvable problem. They can use the real-time usage of Citymapper to model congestion, and offer better route suggestions. I'm quite happy to use a journey that's 15 minutes longer if it means I'm warm, rather than standing in the cold for 30 waiting for the 'faster' option.
  - EmilLondon 12y ago
    We would love to be able to solve those problems, but we need more humans!
    - pyre 12y ago
      Mental Image: A huge furnace powering a black box labelled "Citymapper Development." There's a ramp up to an opening in the front of the furnace. There are two grunts with full-body jumpsuits that say "Citymapper Employee" on them. They are heaving humans into the furnace. I'm sure you are a great team, but that was the silly mental image "we need more humans" gave me. ;-)
      - madaxe_again 12y ago
        Derived from http://simpsonsscreenshots.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/moredogs.png http://simpsonsscreenshots.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/mo..., I'm guessing!
      - azmaty 12y ago
        Thats kinda how it is.
  - throwaway283719 12y ago
    To be clear for non-Londoners, route 29 has one of the highest crime rates amongst all London bus routes, especially late at night. I'm not sure if it's particularly bad around Camden, although there is probably a higher than average rate of drunken idiots.
    - nm_101 12y ago
      The 29 is a temporary insane asylum
    - easytiger 12y ago
      Most nightbus experiences start off feeling like fun (yey everyone is in party mood!), become somewhat riddle with a threat of general menace (think A Clockwork Orange) and end up, if you are going far enough, being suicidally depressing because you've sobered up. If you end up falling asleep you will end up in essex, alone and abandoned
- michaelt 12y ago
  I don't know why they do it If you represent every edge on the transport graph with a single fixed traversal cost, you can calculate the lowest cost route between two nodes with well known algorithms like (simple) Dijkstra's algorithm or (high performance) Contraction Hierarchies. When the cost of a route varies with time of day, and the best route changes with time of day, things get quite a bit more complicated.
  - BorgHunter 12y ago
    Not as complicated as you might think. You essentially add time as an extra dimension to your graph, true, but because you're dealing with discrete vehicles instead of a continuously varying function, you can take shortcuts that make that portion of it pretty simple. It's the walk to and from the transit stops, in my experience, that's a PITA to deal with when you're trying to do transit routing.
    - michaelt 12y ago
      If you're doing simple Dijkstra and you only want to return a result for a single departure time, you're right that it's not too complicated as you still only have one cost per edge. If you want to do computations in advance, as you need to for fast algorithms like Contraction Hierarchies, you have a cost-vs-time profile for each edge. Things can get complicated quickly.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- EmilLondon 12y ago
  This isn't a bizarre flaw. We favor routes with higher frequencies, as typically users don't want to take routes immediately. (I work on Citymapper's routing.)
  - ownagefool 12y ago
    Maybe that's the case but I literally never look at maps except when I'm actually trying to go somewhere. Google maps have the arrive / leave by input that helps with your situation though.
  - justincormack 12y ago
    I often want to take routes immediately - can we have a "now" option?
  - scoot 12y ago
    Thank you for your work on CityMapper. However may I respectfully suggest you stop developing for a bit, and go out and actually use it for real, 'in the field'? Head out the office, pick a spot to get to (say a meeting in another part of town) and see if you can figure out which route is actually quickest. It's seldom the one suggested. Trying to figure out the real trip length for upcoming departures for a number of travel options is a head-wrecker. I use CityMapper frequently, and I love it. But this 'feature' is infuriating!
    - Brakenshire 12y ago
      > see if you can figure out which route is actually quickest On this question, there's a balance between possible maximum speed, and reliability. If I want to go to point B, the quickest possible route will often be made by stringing together a serious of improbable connections. For instance, the route could rely on taking three infrequent buses, with little leeway for transfer between one and another, on the assumption that they won't be slowed down by traffic (or just slow customers, stopping more than normal, etc). But if an app sends me along this route, and one of the buses is behind schedule, and I miss the connection, that then becomes a big problem. So there definitely is good sense in prioritizing frequent bus routes to some degree.
- wjoe 12y ago
  I've had really mixed experiences with the time estimates in London. Sometimes it will specifically say that a train/bus will arrive at 17:00, 17:10, 17:20 etc, but sometimes it will just say "every 10 minutes". I haven't worked out the reason for it, I've seen both versions on exactly the same services before. That's pretty much my only complaint about an otherwise perfect app though, but you're right that those little errors can add up to be quite inconvenient over a long or rushed journey.
  - angusb 12y ago
    I know it switches from live timetable to "every 10 minutes" style estimates when: - day bus service ends and night buses begin - your phone signal dies Does it do it at other times too?
- wrikl 12y ago
  I've also experienced issues where the data provided by Citymapper for a desired journey in London is just plain inefficient when compared with common sense. Often the app will suggest a route which takes an extremely long way round (such as suggesting only one journey at something ridiculous like 85 minutes), seemingly optimising for some unintuitive variable (possibly number of changes or as-the-crow-flies distance? I'm not sure) which makes it unfortunately unusable for me. I was excited to try it out since I find the app well-made and seemingly a more focused version of Google Maps. However, Google Maps, given the same destination, provides several routes (and allows for explicit choice by the user for their own weighting) where 99% of the time the quickest route is the one that I had thought of beforehand. And this is when selecting Train + Underground in order to compare directly to the equivalent set of results in CM. A shame.
  - quarterto 12y ago
    I've noticed this with bike sharing. It finds the nearest station by crow-flies distance, then finds a walking route to it, leading to absurd situations like https://citymapper.com/london/superrouter?start=51.498377681772226,-0.034160614013671875&saddr=Flat%2098%20New%20Caledonian%20Wharf&end=51.51429786349476,-0.09252548217773438&eaddr=36%20King%20St https://citymapper.com/london/superrouter?start=51.498377681...
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
- macca321 12y ago
  Even worse, it has a Boris Johnson icon in it.
- azmaty 12y ago
  Agreed on trains. Train data hasn't been good historically so we only recently have the ability to improve this. Internal debate, but not sure we agree on more frequent options like tubes and buses. We're experimenting with real-time ETA, but its pretty whack, things could jump around, which may be ok for nerds but not normal people. Stay tuned, we're not in any way finished. This is what we work on. (Founder of Citymapper)
  - pnathan 12y ago
    Take a look at OneBusAway (if you haven't already), you might find that useful and thought-provoking.
josephschmoe 12y ago
Honestly, the biggest fault of Google Maps is that I can't find something "along the way" to something, just nearby. I'd be much happier if I could specify "TGIF's on the way to Alice's house" or "Gas stations along the way to Las Vegas near the halfway point." I can't get too mad at it, since I can just zoom out and it'll search from the center of the map - but it's not very effective if the distances are long or if I'm using the text interface.
- SlashmanX 12y ago
  You can add extra location to directions by clicking the + to the bottom left of the existing ones (in browser at least). Although I'm not sure if that works with generic locations (like gas stations etc)
- dwynings 12y ago
  Checkout Waze. It calculates time off your current route.
  - pdaddyo 12y ago
    Since Google now own Waze, hopefully these features will be heading to maps soon.
- artr 12y ago
  TomTom will actually do this. You can specify that you want to go to a gas station along your route and it will list all of them and the detour distance required. Unfortunately TomTom makes you pay for live traffic data.
solutionyogi 12y ago
I love Citimapper! I live in NYC and it's the only app I use for navigation now. Highlights for me: 1. Get me Home/Get Me To Work quick links. It takes your current location as starting point and tells you your options for going home/work. 2. You can configure it to monitor your subway line during commute time (7AM to 10AM and 4pm to 6pm) and it will notify you if the subway is delayed for any reason. I use line 6 which breaks down more often than I want and thanks to the App, I can take N/Q/R if Line 6 is down. 3. The way 'Get Me Somewhere' works. In addition to being able to type an address, you can move the map around to point the destination pin to a particular point in map. It's hard for me to explain but it works amazingly well especially in NYC where people often go by cross streets and don't have the actual street address. I completely agree with author that Citiymapper has an exceptional UI/UX.
- blutgens 12y ago
  1. native behaviour in Google Now 2. native behaviour in Google Now 3. native behaviour in Google Now None of these requires additional configuration, it just does it all automagically.
  - Bud 12y ago
    Nobody knows what Google Now is. It's hidden away in the Google Search app in iOS (who uses the Google Search app? Nobody I know. You search in a browser.), accessible only if you happen to know to swipe up from the bottom of the screen. Because that's a really obvious place for a mapping app to be.
  - lbotos 12y ago
    I'd at least like to pretend that I'm not giving Google any more data.
- lazerwalker 12y ago
  Your #3 is funny, since that's precisely the one thing that stops me from being able to use Citymapper on a daily basis. The way I use Google Maps in NYC is by typing in, say, "23rd and 3rd", and Google figures out what I mean. Because Citymapper is dependent on Foursquare for reverse geocoding, I can't really do that; it either has to be enter an exact address or moving the map around.
Jabbles 12y ago
"OK Google, how do I get to X?" "It takes 22 minutes to get to X, here are your directions." I guess that's an unfair comparison. Fair enough about actually using the app though.
- matthewmacleod 12y ago
  That's not really a comparable experience in a city where you have multiple modes of transport, many different options for a single journey, and so on.
  - teach 12y ago
    But I'd wager that the vast majority of Americans don't live in cities like that. It sounds like Citymapper is nailing its niche, so for people that fit that profile it's a much better experience. But I live in Austin, TX. No one is taking a bus or train or bike anywhere. Especially not in a hurry. Virtually everyone drives everywhere; with Google maps on Android I can often do that in a single voice command and zero clicks.
gburt 12y ago
This looks great. It needs more coverage and I don't think the silly options are a good selling feature for a real map app. It's just more visual clutter.
blutgens 12y ago
I suppose when you're on an iOS device it doesn't take much improvement in the UX department to get you fired up.
- lern_too_spel 12y ago
  The ability to just drop a widget on the home screen that instantly brings up directions home or to work (or any other destination you want) in the preferred mode of transportation would blow this guy's mind. 10 seconds? How about 1 second. That's been around since 2009. Now, Google Now automatically shows directions to these places together with expected travel time on preferred mode of transport without any configuration at all. 10 seconds? How about 0 seconds?
yid 12y ago
I was in London recently and was astounded at how prevalent Citymapper has become there. So I'm now taking bets on who will acquire them: 1. Google --> unlikely, they have a large maps team already, and have recently gorged on Waze 2. Apple --> most likely, IMO 3. Facebook --> who knows why? But probably in the running too.
- smackfu 12y ago
  Google did buy Waze, so they are open to maps acquisitions.
  - dpcx 12y ago
    They bought Waze "mostly" for the userbase, but the fact that they have some of the best traffic data is useful too.
    - fidotron 12y ago
      . . . and is interesting as it's almost completely orthogonal to this. Google's existing offerings fail most spectacularly for knowledgeable people in urban environments (I cannot overstate how much GM's handling of subways drives me insane), which is the niche this lot have successfully found. Apple seem to have a lot of customers in that bracket so they are the better fit.
- wjoe 12y ago
  I'm not sure they'd be such a useful aquisition to the big players, as their strong point is the usability of their app itself, rather than the underlying technology so much. Citymapper already use Google Maps for walking directions and actual mapping, and Google Maps already have the same transit data that Citymapper gets from public APIs. Citymapper takes a very different approach to UX to Google Maps so I can't see them going together well. Perhaps it could be used to improve Apple Maps, but again I think it would clash with Apple's usual way of designing apps in house.
farmdve 12y ago
And yet Google maps has mapped the world, has my little town mapped, Citymapper is but a fraction of what Google maps has done.
HugoDias 12y ago
Btw, Citymapper website doesn't load in Firefox Aurora, v33.0a2 :/ (https://citymapper.com/apps https://citymapper.com/apps)
- Grue3 12y ago
  Firefox 32 here, I'm getting a blue screen with nothing on it. Too bad.
- jarek 12y ago
  I found that occasionally their Javascript won't load, at least in Firefox. Usually works after a reload or two.
rumble_king1 12y ago
Bye Google Maps? It uses Google Maps...
- dang 12y ago
  Ok, we've taken that out of the title by using the subtitle instead.
- chippy 12y ago
  indeed, I was expecting... "...Hello OpenStreetMap"
  - Vik1ng 12y ago
    They could probably do this for the cities in Europe, but the US cities have still some work to do.
bhouston 12y ago
Slow page. Ah, I see. One of the gif's in that page is 24MB: https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/800/1*rjIGH2VNUxDerHiGBSydIA.gif https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/800/1*rjIGH2VNUxDe... And this one is 32MB: https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/800/1*a7_PF64-SfAdCLVtVYYDgQ.gif https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/800/1*a7_PF64-SfAd... Total size of gifs in this page: 149MB. Is Gfycat embedable? We should encourage its adoption.
- ghayes 12y ago
  Yeah, not a great experience on a blog post about user experience. It will be nice to see a greater adoption of WebM in general.
- ksec 12y ago
  And I was wondering why the page was loading for so long.... Another thing i found those gif aren't being cached, as i refresh I am sure AWS will be happy with this business.
  - MichaelApproved 12y ago
    Lets do the math. 150MB/visit @ 0.12/GB using Amazon CloudFront[1] costs $0.018/visit. This post was pretty popular here and I'm sure on other sites. It's probably safe to assume they got over 50,000 hits. For that much traffic it'll cost them roughly $900 in bandwidth. However, I bet all the lost traffic due to people leaving the page was probably worse than having to pay $900. [1] http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/pricing/ http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/pricing/
- kachnuv_ocasek 12y ago
  Or use WebMs.
- MichaelApproved 12y ago
  On top of that, A 150mb page kept locking up Firefox. I have multiple tabs open, so maybe that didn't help but I had to back out of the page for fear that it'll crash.
TD-Linux 12y ago
OpenStreetMaps has begun to add routing information, and it's becoming very good lately. It would be nice to see Citymapper work with them, as both sides could benefit - OpenStreetMap quality in citymapper's supported cities would improve (though OSM is already quite good in those cities), and citymapper could gain support for more cities. This is the route MapQuest has gone with MapQuest Open. Still, I'm glad to see Google Maps competitors alive and kicking. Google Maps is one of the main lock-in apps that keeps people inside the closed Google Play Services ecosystem.
- zo1 12y ago
  "Google Maps is one of the main lock-in apps that keeps people inside the closed Google Play Services ecosystem." I can't speak for others. But as someone that tried the Apple "ecosystem" after being on google, I have a big appreciation for it. A lot of websites/apps these days use google for single sign-on, pretty much meaning that I don't have to type my damn login every time I install a new app, etc. But, on the Ipad, I had to type my password in so many times. And my password is 25+ characters long, with mixed upper and lower case. Easy on a keyboard, but on a touch-screen keyboard it is a PAIN.
  - rational-future 12y ago
    Apple has 99 faults, but your lack of touch typing skills ain't one :)
    - zo1 12y ago
      I can touch type, just not on a touch screen :)
  - Vik1ng 12y ago
    I think a lot of people on this website always try to avoid such logins. Google already has enough of my data and I don't want to lock myself into a system if I don't have to. And do you really need a 25+ char password for every blog you comment on?
- Doctor_Fegg 12y ago
kin 12y ago
If I hit "snap to location", Google decides it needs to auto-zoom to a default zoom-level. It's annoying to have to re-zoom to whatever zoom level I'm actually interested in.
serve_yay 12y ago
Yes! I've really been wanting something like this, maps apps are only good at doing one thing at a time and not good for comparing.
mcphage 12y ago
It's fantastic that they understand user experience, but they don't seem to understand that 95%+ of the world doesn't live in 8 specific cities. Google Maps might be an obnoxious app (it is!) but at least I can use it.
- zo1 12y ago
  "Google Maps might be an obnoxious app (it is!) but at least I can use it." You know, you're going to have to actually elaborate on that.
  - mcphage 12y ago
    Elaborate about which part—Google Maps app being obnoxious? The linked article makes a strong case for that—common actions are a number of slow steps, the information that people are actually looking for is missing or difficult to discern, etc. Or that I can use it? That's because I don't live in one of the 8 cities that Citymapper supports, whereas Google Maps works on, I dunno what % of the world, but I'm guessing it's pretty high.
    - EpicEng 12y ago
      Except it's really not designed for that. It's designed for people who know where they're going and how they're going to get there. I don't know, I get in my car, punch in an address, and GMaps does a pretty darn good job of finding a route. That's what 95% of us want.
  - lechevalierd3on 12y ago
    Switching from pedestrian to car require to many actions and is not obvious.
- jarek 12y ago
  Scaling a useful real-time transit app across cities isn't simple. Google Maps, after 10 years, now has GTFS for pretty much anywhere, but real-time data hasn't converged to a standard yet. Not to mention many systems that do publish GTFS don't have or don't publish real-time.
EmilLondon 12y ago
I'm a backend engineer at Citymapper. Just to let everyone know that we're hiring... https://citymapper.com/london/jobs https://citymapper.com/london/jobs
- tacticus 12y ago
  Needs more Melbourne already :P (sorry about the pain and suffering if you do decide to build out melbourne and look at PTVs API docs)
itisbiz 12y ago
"Scenario 3: What are the trains near me?" is great feature. Even better would be "Where do trains/buses go from where I am?" It would be very useful to see all route lines radiating out from my location, with next times and freq. This would help understand the multiple ways to get to another location. One route might get me directly to location, but leave in 15 min. Another route me get me 2 blocks from location, but leave in 2 min.
robot 12y ago
I hate the popup in google maps when I search for a location. It takes up 1/3rd of the screen.
eli 12y ago
It would be interesting to compare to Ridescout, which seems like a more direct competitor than Google Maps.
xwowsersx 12y ago
I agree that the UX of Google Maps isn't great, but one thing that might not be quite fair in the critique is the point about having to enter the origin destination. On mobile, I'd venture to guess that most of the time you simply want to get somewhere from where you are right now. So I personally don't see the origin destination as something that I need quickly accessible. I enter address, click when it auto-populates, and click to navigate. It's usually 2-3 steps for me on Android and I'm ready to go in 5 or so seconds.
Peroni 12y ago
Citymappers founder, Azmat Yusuf, gave a talk at the Hacker News London meetup earlier this year and it was categorically one of our most popular talks in a long time. Unfortunately Azmat (very politely) requested that we not record his talk for our vimeo page (vimeo.com/hnlondon) which is a shame because it was incredibly insightful. If you get the opportunity to attend a talk by Azmat or any of the team, take it. They are an exceptionally clever and humble bunch and I'm thoroughly enjoying being a witness to their growth and success.
VikingCoder 12y ago
https://citymapper.com/ https://citymapper.com/ is down. Google Maps is up. I don't think I can say "Bye, Google Maps" just yet...
djhworld 12y ago
Citymapper is okay, it sometimes screws up with its notifications feature though. I live in London and have it set to notify me if my "favourited" tube lines are suffering problems. A signal failure happened earlier this week on my line and I received no notification of it, only finding out when I got to the station. It's probably an issues to do with Androids background notification system or something, but I dunno
matthewmacleod 12y ago
Citymapper's UX is really awesome, and I always use it as my example of the degree to which attention to detail is so absolutely vital in this sort of app. Like, first-class, best-app-I've-ever-used level of UX. I'm still not totally sold on their routing algorithm in London, but I'm not sure exactly what's wrong with it - all I know is it often suggests routes that no same person would take. It definitely seemed to get a little worse maybe 6 months or so ago; it's possible it's just been tuned in a way that doesn't get on with my usage pattern.
- wjoe 12y ago
  I find that it's become a bit worse as I've become more familiar with London. For someone who doesn't know the city at all it's perfect, but once you know the tube map and various local details, some of the options do seem a little odd. One of the devs posted in this thread that they favour routes with more frequent services, as people often don't want to travel immediately. I'm not entirely sure I agree with this thinking in a mobile app, but it could explain some of the less optimal routes.
  - jarek 12y ago
    Yeah, it doesn't really get all the tiny things that you have to know the system to know. For example, on trips where multiple lines travel on the same tracks, the average wait calculation looks to use only one line's frequency (Liv St to Edgware Rd, "5 min avg"). Time to change between lines at interchange stations also feels unrealistic (1 minute Northern-Bank to Victoria at Euston and 2 minutes Victoria to Piccadilly at Green Park?).
austenallred 12y ago
Not everyone has the same needs. When I use Google Maps all I really want is for it to take me from point A to point B in my car. I type the name of a place and It loads directions, time, traffic, and guides me there using the best route possible. One click. Quite literally the best UX I could imagine. For most of Google Maps users (the ones who don't live in those 8 cities), Google Maps is almost perfect. It's not that Google Maps doesn't have a good UX, it just wasn't built for you.
dazbradbury 12y ago
Feature Request / Suggestion - So I tried the "Share Destination / Meet me sonewhete" feature the other day and thought this was going to do something completely different. How it worked: sent a link to the end location to a friend. Expected / Hoped for usage: Citymapper would separate who clicked the link (allow you to add a name perhaps), then show where everyone else was on the map, and their ETA. So I can say, let's meet at this place, send the link, and know everyone's ETA. A bit like latitude, but smarter. Once there, or on my way, I can track progress. Sure, people might shout about privacy, but it would be insanely useful and save constantly being punished for being on time! Any Citymapper devs out there fancy championing this one?
buro9 12y ago
Google Maps is for car drivers. CityMapper is for multi-transportation within a few metropolis. The UX of Google maps for routing when driving is incredible and beats everyone: Apple, TomTom, Garmin... everyone. Down to showing labels on side streets "3 minutes slower" allowing you to evaluate every decision you could make when faced with traffic. But... for public transport, or mixed transport solutions like crossing a city when so many external factors are at play... CityMapper wins. It's not an either/or, and it's not that Google Maps don't understand UX. Google Maps just has a different focus... the car.
- gknoy 12y ago
  Now if only I could easily set up waypoints on my navigation, so that I can plan a trip. (Leave in the AM, stop at X in 150 miles, stop at Y or Z in 2 hours, stop at Q for lunch, arrive at destination)
  - SixSigma 12y ago
    Oh yes it please. I ride a motorbike and I usually don't want to go on any of the suggested routes. I have to pick a waypoint, go to that, stop, take my gloves off, get the phone out of my jacket, pick another waypoint, put my phone away, put my gloves on, repeat. The other annoying thing is it uses street names as in "turn right on to Main Street" but often the streets don't have name boards and there could be two close together. Still, first world problems eh?
    - smt88 12y ago
      I don't know about the mobile app, but Google Maps on the desktop has supported multiple waypoints for many years. Edit: as someone else mentioned, the app does support it.
      - SixSigma 12y ago
        I just double checked, in case of update, no such option.
- 12y ago
bundaegi 12y ago
Anyone know what screen recording software might have been used to create the gifs/vids in this post?
alttab 12y ago
I havent ever tried Citymapper. That said, if Google Maps re-routes me one more time during my transit I will kill an innocent puppy.
crazygringo 12y ago
I use Citymapper to use Citibike, and it has the following big flaws: - Reloading the app, it never remembers I was on the biking screen, and always goes to the main screen. Minor detail, but annoying, and so easy for them to fix! - Every time I move the map even slightly, it removes all bike stations from the map and queries the API again for a new set of stations, even if the last request was only five seconds ago. If there's any wireless interference, it complete destroys the functionality. I mean, cache the station locations at the very least! And don't hide the old data while waiting for the new data, if it's less than a couple minutes old. - The screen real estate devoted to the map is only ~50%! The bottom third is taken up by a totally unnecessary textual list of stations, which can't be hidden - And you can't even rotate the map! Granted, it's a million times better than the default Citibike app. But it's still got a ways to go to achieve "ideal" UX.
hnriot 12y ago
I wanted to try it but it doesn't seem to support San Francisco! What kind of app doesn't start with San Francisco, let alone not even include it :)
darren_ 12y ago
It's nice to see a thoughtful critique/comparison (dev on iOS gmaps here). Interestingly I don't think anyone who works on iOS maps lives in a citymapper-enabled city. Couple of points that might be helpful if the writer reads this: - you can switch off the shake-to-send feedback (it even prompts you to do so if you dismiss it a few times without leaving feedback). - I'm not sure how the Citymapper UI in scenario 2 (getting directions from a->b) differs from using the directions search screen in googlemaps (reached via the little button with arrows next to the profile button). It presents the directions search screen immediately and would cut down the time in that scenario drastically. (But I guess if the person writing the article doesn't know about that button that's rather a UI smell. I wonder how many people don't know that our things that don't look like buttons are buttons?) - Scenario 5 is also fixed by using the directions non-button, your previous searches show up in the zero type suggestions there. I am however going to try and convince the powers that be that Citibike integration is a must, so I can have a holiday to new york.
- rspeer 12y ago
  I'm glad there's (eventually) an obvious way to disable shake-to-send-feedback, but I agree wholeheartedly with the article. Who thought that was a useful feature to have in an app that you use while moving?
- jfim 12y ago
  I don't think adding the integration would be hard. For example, the Montreal bike system (and other Bixi deployments) has all the information you'd need to add the integration, including the lat/lon of all stations and their current bike count[1]. Citibike has a different endpoint[2] and data format, due to the contractual dispute between Bixi and 8D, so they had a different system deployed than other Bixi rollouts. A simple implementation would simply walk between the endpoints of the route and the closest bike stations. A better integration would also consider more complicated multimodal routes (walk, bike, metro, bike, walk) and historical usage patterns to predict empty/full stations. If it helps convince the PTB that public bike system integration is a must, I use it as my sole means of transportation during the summer months, relying exclusively on bike navigation (it's great!), then awkwardly fumbling with another app to find a bike station near my destination. [1] https://montreal.bixi.com/data/bikeStations.xml https://montreal.bixi.com/data/bikeStations.xml [2] http://appservices.citibikenyc.com/data2/stations.php http://appservices.citibikenyc.com/data2/stations.php
pthreads 12y ago
Meh! I find these features just incremental improvements. Most apps these days quickly catchup on UI/UX features. Even OSes are mostly the same these days.
omouse 12y ago
I don't understand why they can't use Google Maps or OpenStreetMaps or some other API to grab city data for other cities. It only covers NYC, London, Barcelona and a few other cities. Nearly useless for anyone else in the world!
dalek2point3 12y ago
"Turn-by-turn directions" One of the reasons Im guessing it doesnt have this is because the Google Maps API prohibits building turn-by-turn applications quite directly. If only they trusted OSM, they could have this up and running pretty quickly.
qxmat 12y ago
How do I buy you a beer?

355 points by ryanwhitney 12y ago

I would sure hope that a site that only works in seven cities would be better than a site that works worldwide. Otherwise what's the point?

zo1 12y ago
What about a site that only works in one browser? (Ok, just trying to be catchy there. It works on 2/3 of the browsers I have installed to test with.)

keehun 12y ago

Great, but the fact that Citymapper is only available in eight cities makes it completely useless to those outside of those cities. From this post, however, it does seem like a very well put together experience.

bonaldi 12y ago

Citymapper has this bizarre flaw (in London at least) where it relies on average times to give you journey times. So, for example, if your train takes 10 minutes to reach your destination, leaves your local station every 30 minutes and you've just missed one, CityMapper will show an estimated journey time as 25 minutes (avg wait 15 minutes + 10 min journey), instead of the actual 39. On multi-train journeys like many Londoners have, that error compounds quickly, and it can make choosing the fastest route near-impossible. And I don't know why they do it, because they have all the timetable data (including live timetables).

andrewingram 12y ago
They also have harder problems to solve when it comes to buses. During the tube strikes, it was incredibly frustrating to have all the route suggestions involve getting the 29 in Camden. Anyone who's attempted to get the 29 from Camden late at night will know what I'm talking about. Essentially they need to start including knowledge not just about how frequent transport is supposed to be, but the typical number you'll have to miss before you can get on. For the 29 in Camden this number is around 5. But, as Citymapper becomes more ubiquitous within each city, this becomes a solvable problem. They can use the real-time usage of Citymapper to model congestion, and offer better route suggestions. I'm quite happy to use a journey that's 15 minutes longer if it means I'm warm, rather than standing in the cold for 30 waiting for the 'faster' option.
- EmilLondon 12y ago
  We would love to be able to solve those problems, but we need more humans!
  - pyre 12y ago
    Mental Image: A huge furnace powering a black box labelled "Citymapper Development." There's a ramp up to an opening in the front of the furnace. There are two grunts with full-body jumpsuits that say "Citymapper Employee" on them. They are heaving humans into the furnace. I'm sure you are a great team, but that was the silly mental image "we need more humans" gave me. ;-)
    - madaxe_again 12y ago
      Derived from http://simpsonsscreenshots.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/moredogs.png http://simpsonsscreenshots.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/mo..., I'm guessing!
    - azmaty 12y ago
      Thats kinda how it is.
- throwaway283719 12y ago
  To be clear for non-Londoners, route 29 has one of the highest crime rates amongst all London bus routes, especially late at night. I'm not sure if it's particularly bad around Camden, although there is probably a higher than average rate of drunken idiots.
  - nm_101 12y ago
    The 29 is a temporary insane asylum
  - easytiger 12y ago
    Most nightbus experiences start off feeling like fun (yey everyone is in party mood!), become somewhat riddle with a threat of general menace (think A Clockwork Orange) and end up, if you are going far enough, being suicidally depressing because you've sobered up. If you end up falling asleep you will end up in essex, alone and abandoned
michaelt 12y ago
I don't know why they do it If you represent every edge on the transport graph with a single fixed traversal cost, you can calculate the lowest cost route between two nodes with well known algorithms like (simple) Dijkstra's algorithm or (high performance) Contraction Hierarchies. When the cost of a route varies with time of day, and the best route changes with time of day, things get quite a bit more complicated.
- BorgHunter 12y ago
  Not as complicated as you might think. You essentially add time as an extra dimension to your graph, true, but because you're dealing with discrete vehicles instead of a continuously varying function, you can take shortcuts that make that portion of it pretty simple. It's the walk to and from the transit stops, in my experience, that's a PITA to deal with when you're trying to do transit routing.
  - michaelt 12y ago
    If you're doing simple Dijkstra and you only want to return a result for a single departure time, you're right that it's not too complicated as you still only have one cost per edge. If you want to do computations in advance, as you need to for fast algorithms like Contraction Hierarchies, you have a cost-vs-time profile for each edge. Things can get complicated quickly.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
EmilLondon 12y ago
This isn't a bizarre flaw. We favor routes with higher frequencies, as typically users don't want to take routes immediately. (I work on Citymapper's routing.)
- ownagefool 12y ago
  Maybe that's the case but I literally never look at maps except when I'm actually trying to go somewhere. Google maps have the arrive / leave by input that helps with your situation though.
- justincormack 12y ago
  I often want to take routes immediately - can we have a "now" option?
- scoot 12y ago
  Thank you for your work on CityMapper. However may I respectfully suggest you stop developing for a bit, and go out and actually use it for real, 'in the field'? Head out the office, pick a spot to get to (say a meeting in another part of town) and see if you can figure out which route is actually quickest. It's seldom the one suggested. Trying to figure out the real trip length for upcoming departures for a number of travel options is a head-wrecker. I use CityMapper frequently, and I love it. But this 'feature' is infuriating!
  - Brakenshire 12y ago
    > see if you can figure out which route is actually quickest On this question, there's a balance between possible maximum speed, and reliability. If I want to go to point B, the quickest possible route will often be made by stringing together a serious of improbable connections. For instance, the route could rely on taking three infrequent buses, with little leeway for transfer between one and another, on the assumption that they won't be slowed down by traffic (or just slow customers, stopping more than normal, etc). But if an app sends me along this route, and one of the buses is behind schedule, and I miss the connection, that then becomes a big problem. So there definitely is good sense in prioritizing frequent bus routes to some degree.
wjoe 12y ago
I've had really mixed experiences with the time estimates in London. Sometimes it will specifically say that a train/bus will arrive at 17:00, 17:10, 17:20 etc, but sometimes it will just say "every 10 minutes". I haven't worked out the reason for it, I've seen both versions on exactly the same services before. That's pretty much my only complaint about an otherwise perfect app though, but you're right that those little errors can add up to be quite inconvenient over a long or rushed journey.
- angusb 12y ago
  I know it switches from live timetable to "every 10 minutes" style estimates when: - day bus service ends and night buses begin - your phone signal dies Does it do it at other times too?
wrikl 12y ago
I've also experienced issues where the data provided by Citymapper for a desired journey in London is just plain inefficient when compared with common sense. Often the app will suggest a route which takes an extremely long way round (such as suggesting only one journey at something ridiculous like 85 minutes), seemingly optimising for some unintuitive variable (possibly number of changes or as-the-crow-flies distance? I'm not sure) which makes it unfortunately unusable for me. I was excited to try it out since I find the app well-made and seemingly a more focused version of Google Maps. However, Google Maps, given the same destination, provides several routes (and allows for explicit choice by the user for their own weighting) where 99% of the time the quickest route is the one that I had thought of beforehand. And this is when selecting Train + Underground in order to compare directly to the equivalent set of results in CM. A shame.
- quarterto 12y ago
  I've noticed this with bike sharing. It finds the nearest station by crow-flies distance, then finds a walking route to it, leading to absurd situations like https://citymapper.com/london/superrouter?start=51.498377681772226,-0.034160614013671875&saddr=Flat%2098%20New%20Caledonian%20Wharf&end=51.51429786349476,-0.09252548217773438&eaddr=36%20King%20St https://citymapper.com/london/superrouter?start=51.498377681...
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
macca321 12y ago
Even worse, it has a Boris Johnson icon in it.
azmaty 12y ago
Agreed on trains. Train data hasn't been good historically so we only recently have the ability to improve this. Internal debate, but not sure we agree on more frequent options like tubes and buses. We're experimenting with real-time ETA, but its pretty whack, things could jump around, which may be ok for nerds but not normal people. Stay tuned, we're not in any way finished. This is what we work on. (Founder of Citymapper)
- pnathan 12y ago
  Take a look at OneBusAway (if you haven't already), you might find that useful and thought-provoking.

josephschmoe 12y ago

Honestly, the biggest fault of Google Maps is that I can't find something "along the way" to something, just nearby. I'd be much happier if I could specify "TGIF's on the way to Alice's house" or "Gas stations along the way to Las Vegas near the halfway point." I can't get too mad at it, since I can just zoom out and it'll search from the center of the map - but it's not very effective if the distances are long or if I'm using the text interface.

SlashmanX 12y ago
You can add extra location to directions by clicking the + to the bottom left of the existing ones (in browser at least). Although I'm not sure if that works with generic locations (like gas stations etc)
dwynings 12y ago
Checkout Waze. It calculates time off your current route.
- pdaddyo 12y ago
  Since Google now own Waze, hopefully these features will be heading to maps soon.
artr 12y ago
TomTom will actually do this. You can specify that you want to go to a gas station along your route and it will list all of them and the detour distance required. Unfortunately TomTom makes you pay for live traffic data.

solutionyogi 12y ago

I love Citimapper! I live in NYC and it's the only app I use for navigation now. Highlights for me: 1. Get me Home/Get Me To Work quick links. It takes your current location as starting point and tells you your options for going home/work. 2. You can configure it to monitor your subway line during commute time (7AM to 10AM and 4pm to 6pm) and it will notify you if the subway is delayed for any reason. I use line 6 which breaks down more often than I want and thanks to the App, I can take N/Q/R if Line 6 is down. 3. The way 'Get Me Somewhere' works. In addition to being able to type an address, you can move the map around to point the destination pin to a particular point in map. It's hard for me to explain but it works amazingly well especially in NYC where people often go by cross streets and don't have the actual street address. I completely agree with author that Citiymapper has an exceptional UI/UX.

blutgens 12y ago
1. native behaviour in Google Now 2. native behaviour in Google Now 3. native behaviour in Google Now None of these requires additional configuration, it just does it all automagically.
- Bud 12y ago
  Nobody knows what Google Now is. It's hidden away in the Google Search app in iOS (who uses the Google Search app? Nobody I know. You search in a browser.), accessible only if you happen to know to swipe up from the bottom of the screen. Because that's a really obvious place for a mapping app to be.
- lbotos 12y ago
  I'd at least like to pretend that I'm not giving Google any more data.
lazerwalker 12y ago
Your #3 is funny, since that's precisely the one thing that stops me from being able to use Citymapper on a daily basis. The way I use Google Maps in NYC is by typing in, say, "23rd and 3rd", and Google figures out what I mean. Because Citymapper is dependent on Foursquare for reverse geocoding, I can't really do that; it either has to be enter an exact address or moving the map around.

Jabbles 12y ago

"OK Google, how do I get to X?" "It takes 22 minutes to get to X, here are your directions." I guess that's an unfair comparison. Fair enough about actually using the app though.

matthewmacleod 12y ago
That's not really a comparable experience in a city where you have multiple modes of transport, many different options for a single journey, and so on.
- teach 12y ago
  But I'd wager that the vast majority of Americans don't live in cities like that. It sounds like Citymapper is nailing its niche, so for people that fit that profile it's a much better experience. But I live in Austin, TX. No one is taking a bus or train or bike anywhere. Especially not in a hurry. Virtually everyone drives everywhere; with Google maps on Android I can often do that in a single voice command and zero clicks.

gburt 12y ago

This looks great. It needs more coverage and I don't think the silly options are a good selling feature for a real map app. It's just more visual clutter.

blutgens 12y ago

I suppose when you're on an iOS device it doesn't take much improvement in the UX department to get you fired up.

lern_too_spel 12y ago
The ability to just drop a widget on the home screen that instantly brings up directions home or to work (or any other destination you want) in the preferred mode of transportation would blow this guy's mind. 10 seconds? How about 1 second. That's been around since 2009. Now, Google Now automatically shows directions to these places together with expected travel time on preferred mode of transport without any configuration at all. 10 seconds? How about 0 seconds?

yid 12y ago

I was in London recently and was astounded at how prevalent Citymapper has become there. So I'm now taking bets on who will acquire them: 1. Google --> unlikely, they have a large maps team already, and have recently gorged on Waze 2. Apple --> most likely, IMO 3. Facebook --> who knows why? But probably in the running too.

smackfu 12y ago
Google did buy Waze, so they are open to maps acquisitions.
- dpcx 12y ago
  They bought Waze "mostly" for the userbase, but the fact that they have some of the best traffic data is useful too.
  - fidotron 12y ago
    . . . and is interesting as it's almost completely orthogonal to this. Google's existing offerings fail most spectacularly for knowledgeable people in urban environments (I cannot overstate how much GM's handling of subways drives me insane), which is the niche this lot have successfully found. Apple seem to have a lot of customers in that bracket so they are the better fit.
wjoe 12y ago
I'm not sure they'd be such a useful aquisition to the big players, as their strong point is the usability of their app itself, rather than the underlying technology so much. Citymapper already use Google Maps for walking directions and actual mapping, and Google Maps already have the same transit data that Citymapper gets from public APIs. Citymapper takes a very different approach to UX to Google Maps so I can't see them going together well. Perhaps it could be used to improve Apple Maps, but again I think it would clash with Apple's usual way of designing apps in house.

farmdve 12y ago

And yet Google maps has mapped the world, has my little town mapped, Citymapper is but a fraction of what Google maps has done.

HugoDias 12y ago

Btw, Citymapper website doesn't load in Firefox Aurora, v33.0a2 :/ (https://citymapper.com/apps https://citymapper.com/apps)

Grue3 12y ago
Firefox 32 here, I'm getting a blue screen with nothing on it. Too bad.
jarek 12y ago
I found that occasionally their Javascript won't load, at least in Firefox. Usually works after a reload or two.

rumble_king1 12y ago

Bye Google Maps? It uses Google Maps...

dang 12y ago
Ok, we've taken that out of the title by using the subtitle instead.
chippy 12y ago
indeed, I was expecting... "...Hello OpenStreetMap"
- Vik1ng 12y ago
  They could probably do this for the cities in Europe, but the US cities have still some work to do.

bhouston 12y ago

Slow page. Ah, I see. One of the gif's in that page is 24MB: https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/800/1*rjIGH2VNUxDerHiGBSydIA.gif https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/800/1*rjIGH2VNUxDe... And this one is 32MB: https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/800/1*a7_PF64-SfAdCLVtVYYDgQ.gif https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/800/1*a7_PF64-SfAd... Total size of gifs in this page: 149MB. Is Gfycat embedable? We should encourage its adoption.

ghayes 12y ago
Yeah, not a great experience on a blog post about user experience. It will be nice to see a greater adoption of WebM in general.
ksec 12y ago
And I was wondering why the page was loading for so long.... Another thing i found those gif aren't being cached, as i refresh I am sure AWS will be happy with this business.
- MichaelApproved 12y ago
  Lets do the math. 150MB/visit @ 0.12/GB using Amazon CloudFront[1] costs $0.018/visit. This post was pretty popular here and I'm sure on other sites. It's probably safe to assume they got over 50,000 hits. For that much traffic it'll cost them roughly $900 in bandwidth. However, I bet all the lost traffic due to people leaving the page was probably worse than having to pay $900. [1] http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/pricing/ http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/pricing/
kachnuv_ocasek 12y ago
Or use WebMs.
MichaelApproved 12y ago
On top of that, A 150mb page kept locking up Firefox. I have multiple tabs open, so maybe that didn't help but I had to back out of the page for fear that it'll crash.

TD-Linux 12y ago

OpenStreetMaps has begun to add routing information, and it's becoming very good lately. It would be nice to see Citymapper work with them, as both sides could benefit - OpenStreetMap quality in citymapper's supported cities would improve (though OSM is already quite good in those cities), and citymapper could gain support for more cities. This is the route MapQuest has gone with MapQuest Open. Still, I'm glad to see Google Maps competitors alive and kicking. Google Maps is one of the main lock-in apps that keeps people inside the closed Google Play Services ecosystem.

zo1 12y ago
"Google Maps is one of the main lock-in apps that keeps people inside the closed Google Play Services ecosystem." I can't speak for others. But as someone that tried the Apple "ecosystem" after being on google, I have a big appreciation for it. A lot of websites/apps these days use google for single sign-on, pretty much meaning that I don't have to type my damn login every time I install a new app, etc. But, on the Ipad, I had to type my password in so many times. And my password is 25+ characters long, with mixed upper and lower case. Easy on a keyboard, but on a touch-screen keyboard it is a PAIN.
- rational-future 12y ago
  Apple has 99 faults, but your lack of touch typing skills ain't one :)
  - zo1 12y ago
    I can touch type, just not on a touch screen :)
- Vik1ng 12y ago
  I think a lot of people on this website always try to avoid such logins. Google already has enough of my data and I don't want to lock myself into a system if I don't have to. And do you really need a 25+ char password for every blog you comment on?
Doctor_Fegg 12y ago

kin 12y ago

If I hit "snap to location", Google decides it needs to auto-zoom to a default zoom-level. It's annoying to have to re-zoom to whatever zoom level I'm actually interested in.

serve_yay 12y ago

Yes! I've really been wanting something like this, maps apps are only good at doing one thing at a time and not good for comparing.

mcphage 12y ago

It's fantastic that they understand user experience, but they don't seem to understand that 95%+ of the world doesn't live in 8 specific cities. Google Maps might be an obnoxious app (it is!) but at least I can use it.

zo1 12y ago
"Google Maps might be an obnoxious app (it is!) but at least I can use it." You know, you're going to have to actually elaborate on that.
- mcphage 12y ago
  Elaborate about which part—Google Maps app being obnoxious? The linked article makes a strong case for that—common actions are a number of slow steps, the information that people are actually looking for is missing or difficult to discern, etc. Or that I can use it? That's because I don't live in one of the 8 cities that Citymapper supports, whereas Google Maps works on, I dunno what % of the world, but I'm guessing it's pretty high.
  - EpicEng 12y ago
    Except it's really not designed for that. It's designed for people who know where they're going and how they're going to get there. I don't know, I get in my car, punch in an address, and GMaps does a pretty darn good job of finding a route. That's what 95% of us want.
- lechevalierd3on 12y ago
  Switching from pedestrian to car require to many actions and is not obvious.
jarek 12y ago
Scaling a useful real-time transit app across cities isn't simple. Google Maps, after 10 years, now has GTFS for pretty much anywhere, but real-time data hasn't converged to a standard yet. Not to mention many systems that do publish GTFS don't have or don't publish real-time.

EmilLondon 12y ago

I'm a backend engineer at Citymapper. Just to let everyone know that we're hiring... https://citymapper.com/london/jobs https://citymapper.com/london/jobs

tacticus 12y ago
Needs more Melbourne already :P (sorry about the pain and suffering if you do decide to build out melbourne and look at PTVs API docs)

itisbiz 12y ago

"Scenario 3: What are the trains near me?" is great feature. Even better would be "Where do trains/buses go from where I am?" It would be very useful to see all route lines radiating out from my location, with next times and freq. This would help understand the multiple ways to get to another location. One route might get me directly to location, but leave in 15 min. Another route me get me 2 blocks from location, but leave in 2 min.

robot 12y ago

I hate the popup in google maps when I search for a location. It takes up 1/3rd of the screen.

eli 12y ago

It would be interesting to compare to Ridescout, which seems like a more direct competitor than Google Maps.

xwowsersx 12y ago

I agree that the UX of Google Maps isn't great, but one thing that might not be quite fair in the critique is the point about having to enter the origin destination. On mobile, I'd venture to guess that most of the time you simply want to get somewhere from where you are right now. So I personally don't see the origin destination as something that I need quickly accessible. I enter address, click when it auto-populates, and click to navigate. It's usually 2-3 steps for me on Android and I'm ready to go in 5 or so seconds.

Peroni 12y ago

Citymappers founder, Azmat Yusuf, gave a talk at the Hacker News London meetup earlier this year and it was categorically one of our most popular talks in a long time. Unfortunately Azmat (very politely) requested that we not record his talk for our vimeo page (vimeo.com/hnlondon) which is a shame because it was incredibly insightful. If you get the opportunity to attend a talk by Azmat or any of the team, take it. They are an exceptionally clever and humble bunch and I'm thoroughly enjoying being a witness to their growth and success.

VikingCoder 12y ago

https://citymapper.com/ https://citymapper.com/ is down. Google Maps is up. I don't think I can say "Bye, Google Maps" just yet...

djhworld 12y ago

Citymapper is okay, it sometimes screws up with its notifications feature though. I live in London and have it set to notify me if my "favourited" tube lines are suffering problems. A signal failure happened earlier this week on my line and I received no notification of it, only finding out when I got to the station. It's probably an issues to do with Androids background notification system or something, but I dunno

matthewmacleod 12y ago

Citymapper's UX is really awesome, and I always use it as my example of the degree to which attention to detail is so absolutely vital in this sort of app. Like, first-class, best-app-I've-ever-used level of UX. I'm still not totally sold on their routing algorithm in London, but I'm not sure exactly what's wrong with it - all I know is it often suggests routes that no same person would take. It definitely seemed to get a little worse maybe 6 months or so ago; it's possible it's just been tuned in a way that doesn't get on with my usage pattern.

wjoe 12y ago
I find that it's become a bit worse as I've become more familiar with London. For someone who doesn't know the city at all it's perfect, but once you know the tube map and various local details, some of the options do seem a little odd. One of the devs posted in this thread that they favour routes with more frequent services, as people often don't want to travel immediately. I'm not entirely sure I agree with this thinking in a mobile app, but it could explain some of the less optimal routes.
- jarek 12y ago
  Yeah, it doesn't really get all the tiny things that you have to know the system to know. For example, on trips where multiple lines travel on the same tracks, the average wait calculation looks to use only one line's frequency (Liv St to Edgware Rd, "5 min avg"). Time to change between lines at interchange stations also feels unrealistic (1 minute Northern-Bank to Victoria at Euston and 2 minutes Victoria to Piccadilly at Green Park?).

austenallred 12y ago

Not everyone has the same needs. When I use Google Maps all I really want is for it to take me from point A to point B in my car. I type the name of a place and It loads directions, time, traffic, and guides me there using the best route possible. One click. Quite literally the best UX I could imagine. For most of Google Maps users (the ones who don't live in those 8 cities), Google Maps is almost perfect. It's not that Google Maps doesn't have a good UX, it just wasn't built for you.

dazbradbury 12y ago

Feature Request / Suggestion - So I tried the "Share Destination / Meet me sonewhete" feature the other day and thought this was going to do something completely different. How it worked: sent a link to the end location to a friend. Expected / Hoped for usage: Citymapper would separate who clicked the link (allow you to add a name perhaps), then show where everyone else was on the map, and their ETA. So I can say, let's meet at this place, send the link, and know everyone's ETA. A bit like latitude, but smarter. Once there, or on my way, I can track progress. Sure, people might shout about privacy, but it would be insanely useful and save constantly being punished for being on time! Any Citymapper devs out there fancy championing this one?

buro9 12y ago

Google Maps is for car drivers. CityMapper is for multi-transportation within a few metropolis. The UX of Google maps for routing when driving is incredible and beats everyone: Apple, TomTom, Garmin... everyone. Down to showing labels on side streets "3 minutes slower" allowing you to evaluate every decision you could make when faced with traffic. But... for public transport, or mixed transport solutions like crossing a city when so many external factors are at play... CityMapper wins. It's not an either/or, and it's not that Google Maps don't understand UX. Google Maps just has a different focus... the car.

gknoy 12y ago
Now if only I could easily set up waypoints on my navigation, so that I can plan a trip. (Leave in the AM, stop at X in 150 miles, stop at Y or Z in 2 hours, stop at Q for lunch, arrive at destination)
- SixSigma 12y ago
  Oh yes it please. I ride a motorbike and I usually don't want to go on any of the suggested routes. I have to pick a waypoint, go to that, stop, take my gloves off, get the phone out of my jacket, pick another waypoint, put my phone away, put my gloves on, repeat. The other annoying thing is it uses street names as in "turn right on to Main Street" but often the streets don't have name boards and there could be two close together. Still, first world problems eh?
  - smt88 12y ago
    I don't know about the mobile app, but Google Maps on the desktop has supported multiple waypoints for many years. Edit: as someone else mentioned, the app does support it.
    - SixSigma 12y ago
      I just double checked, in case of update, no such option.
12y ago

bundaegi 12y ago

Anyone know what screen recording software might have been used to create the gifs/vids in this post?

alttab 12y ago

I havent ever tried Citymapper. That said, if Google Maps re-routes me one more time during my transit I will kill an innocent puppy.

crazygringo 12y ago

I use Citymapper to use Citibike, and it has the following big flaws: - Reloading the app, it never remembers I was on the biking screen, and always goes to the main screen. Minor detail, but annoying, and so easy for them to fix! - Every time I move the map even slightly, it removes all bike stations from the map and queries the API again for a new set of stations, even if the last request was only five seconds ago. If there's any wireless interference, it complete destroys the functionality. I mean, cache the station locations at the very least! And don't hide the old data while waiting for the new data, if it's less than a couple minutes old. - The screen real estate devoted to the map is only ~50%! The bottom third is taken up by a totally unnecessary textual list of stations, which can't be hidden - And you can't even rotate the map! Granted, it's a million times better than the default Citibike app. But it's still got a ways to go to achieve "ideal" UX.

hnriot 12y ago

I wanted to try it but it doesn't seem to support San Francisco! What kind of app doesn't start with San Francisco, let alone not even include it :)

darren_ 12y ago

It's nice to see a thoughtful critique/comparison (dev on iOS gmaps here). Interestingly I don't think anyone who works on iOS maps lives in a citymapper-enabled city. Couple of points that might be helpful if the writer reads this: - you can switch off the shake-to-send feedback (it even prompts you to do so if you dismiss it a few times without leaving feedback). - I'm not sure how the Citymapper UI in scenario 2 (getting directions from a->b) differs from using the directions search screen in googlemaps (reached via the little button with arrows next to the profile button). It presents the directions search screen immediately and would cut down the time in that scenario drastically. (But I guess if the person writing the article doesn't know about that button that's rather a UI smell. I wonder how many people don't know that our things that don't look like buttons are buttons?) - Scenario 5 is also fixed by using the directions non-button, your previous searches show up in the zero type suggestions there. I am however going to try and convince the powers that be that Citibike integration is a must, so I can have a holiday to new york.

rspeer 12y ago
I'm glad there's (eventually) an obvious way to disable shake-to-send-feedback, but I agree wholeheartedly with the article. Who thought that was a useful feature to have in an app that you use while moving?
jfim 12y ago
I don't think adding the integration would be hard. For example, the Montreal bike system (and other Bixi deployments) has all the information you'd need to add the integration, including the lat/lon of all stations and their current bike count[1]. Citibike has a different endpoint[2] and data format, due to the contractual dispute between Bixi and 8D, so they had a different system deployed than other Bixi rollouts. A simple implementation would simply walk between the endpoints of the route and the closest bike stations. A better integration would also consider more complicated multimodal routes (walk, bike, metro, bike, walk) and historical usage patterns to predict empty/full stations. If it helps convince the PTB that public bike system integration is a must, I use it as my sole means of transportation during the summer months, relying exclusively on bike navigation (it's great!), then awkwardly fumbling with another app to find a bike station near my destination. [1] https://montreal.bixi.com/data/bikeStations.xml https://montreal.bixi.com/data/bikeStations.xml [2] http://appservices.citibikenyc.com/data2/stations.php http://appservices.citibikenyc.com/data2/stations.php

pthreads 12y ago

Meh! I find these features just incremental improvements. Most apps these days quickly catchup on UI/UX features. Even OSes are mostly the same these days.

omouse 12y ago

I don't understand why they can't use Google Maps or OpenStreetMaps or some other API to grab city data for other cities. It only covers NYC, London, Barcelona and a few other cities. Nearly useless for anyone else in the world!

dalek2point3 12y ago

"Turn-by-turn directions" One of the reasons Im guessing it doesnt have this is because the Google Maps API prohibits building turn-by-turn applications quite directly. If only they trusted OSM, they could have this up and running pretty quickly.

qxmat 12y ago

How do I buy you a beer?