Transit • Subway & Bus Times Reviews

by WhiskeyTang

There is way too much going on in TransitSubwayBusTimes. I was using an app called Swiftly to get San Francisco BART times for my commute and the Transit app company must have bought them out because Swiftly no longer works and gives a link to TransitSubwayBusTimes.
Okay, so I gave it a shot. Firstly, TransitSubwayBusTimes opens onto a map view with a bunch of bus/train and other transit stops dotted all over it and there’s no way to navigate to a particular station until the data loads. This is really frustrating for me because sometimes I like to check the train times when I’m already at the station in case the first train that comes is crowded, I can decide if it’s worth waiting for the next train or squeeze in with the crowd. The station I use is underground with poor reception and no GPS so I can’t actually use TransitSubwayBusTimes to quickly check train times because the map data has to load to be able to navigate in TransitSubwayBusTimes !
I used Swiftly because I need an app to quickly look at train times for a particular station. This Transit app is bloated and slow and it was too difficult to set it up in a way that quickly gave me the information I wanted. I’m very sad that they bought out and took away a competing app that was better.
I use EasyBART now and I pray these guys don’t buy them out next

by Kaliya689

I use TransitSubwayBusTimes everyday to get to work, I tend to get on the first buses in the morning on a bus line that has terrible service in my area. So I consistently have TransitSubwayBusTimes on so I can make sure I’m not late and make the time to get to my bus stop on time or try to pull out my emergency Uber ride money if there’s a major delay. But lately the times has not been accurate usually TransitSubwayBusTimes has been two or three minutes off in the morning or more if I’m downtown because of all the drivers. I never have too much of a problem. But this week? I’ve basically been having to basically run like hell to make sure I’ve made it to my bus on time. Only to be there waiting out of breath and my bad ankle aching for a bus that’s not coming for another 10-20 minutes. It keeps occurring and it’s not my bus that’s the issue because I know many people at my job have been dealing with similar issues this past week. Also usually if the time seems mistaken you can pull up the map to see where the bus is only problem is that it hasn’t been showing me that for the week either. So it’s like I’m consistently doing the most just not to risk being late, only to sit there looking stupid and losing more of what sleep I can get.

by Baaboop!

I used to like TransitSubwayBusTimes better, and still want to like it, but it’s slowly wearing me out. I know that it is a 3rd party app and is only reliant on the information it obtains from local transportation agencies, yet if that information isn’t reliable, then TransitSubwayBusTimes isn’t reliable. I’ve read some of their responses to other reviews and I think it’s a cop-out for them to just say “sorry, we’re a third party app.” I’m sure its frustrating to rely on unreliable information from agencies like the notoriously inept mta (which will say on the marquee that a train is coming in three minutes for over five minutes or longer), and I hope their sources of information get better. In the meantime, be aware that TransitSubwayBusTimes isn’t that reliable, especially with bus schedules. The times listed are frequently wrong, it will say buses are coming that never show up, and the most annoying to me is that they will show a bus icon “in real time” on the map, on its way to your stop, then suddenly, it will disappear. What happens to these phantom buses? I still leave super early to give myself time for bus and train delays because I know I can’t rely on any posted info. The dream, though, is still that, one day, one of these apps will be good enough that I can save myself some time while still making it to school and work on time. Unfortunately, they’re still not there and whether or not it’s the apps fault or the mta’s fault, whats the difference?

by Rockybalnoahh

Horrible. The VERY ONLY REASON I use TransitSubwayBusTimes is because it’s the most seemless one. I’ve received marks at my job for being late and trusting TransitSubwayBusTimes have missed other rides because of TransitSubwayBusTimes. If you want to get anything done TransitSubwayBusTimes works MAYBE 30% of the day the rest of the day it will literally say bus arriving. Then just skip the bus and go to the next bus which is 30 minutes away. It’s so bad it’s almost a scam. It’s almost as if TransitSubwayBusTimes wants you to have a messed up day. Came to write a bad review but see I already have one in the previous paragraph(good job past me) TransitSubwayBusTimes still remains trash. Gps is an outdated tech that any basic company should have figured out. Literally sitting down for a bus that goes from 23 minutes all the way to zero. Watch it traveling on the map. Then when it gets to zero minutes remaining the bus disappears, like magic. Luckily today I’m doing nothing important. Had I been on my way to work I’d have been late. If you use TransitSubwayBusTimes leave for work an hour ahead of what it says. Because TransitSubwayBusTimes is straight up lying to you half the time . I’ve used TransitSubwayBusTimes for years and never has the experience gotten better

by Ashley3793

For the past two year I have thoroughly enjoyed your app. Unfortunately that ends today. I understand that you are trying to keep up to date with the advancement in technology but does that need to sacrifice the quality of TransitSubwayBusTimes ? TransitSubwayBusTimes is done beautifully. The colors are vibrant and the advancements are enjoyable; but it’s not reliable anymore. I use to be able to pin point the exact time I would make it to my destination. Literally. I was able to press on a stop on the line and see what other train or buses run in that area. I was also able to then see their arrive time and predict which route would be faster to me. A for some reason that all has vanished over night. TransitSubwayBusTimes was so amazing that I made sure that everyone I’ve ever come in contact with downloaded TransitSubwayBusTimes ; as well as many tourists. I live in New York city so the train are extremely important to us as well as the ability to predict our arrive time. In a city that is heavy controlled by delays of “train traffic ahead” or “sick passengers” we rely on apps like yours to help us get through the subway storms and to our destination quickly and safely. You can change the formula but please don’t sacrifice the quality.

by Benjamin From CA

Update to my original review. If you have already updated to the new version of the transit app and suffer from the issues I mentioned below remove the modern widget from your screen, and reboot and the old widget should reappear. At least in my case it took a couple of reboots but once it reappeared it has stayed. Hopefully this will get resolved in the next version. My original review is below explaining the situation.

As of version 5.9.0 they have taken away the classic widget that provided the nearby departures for your location without opening TransitSubwayBusTimes . The modern widget they replaced it with not only fails to provide this information but it is also set up with a color scheme that is not accessible for people with visual impairments as well as the elderly who may be dealing with contrast issues between colors. Why they believe that light green text on a medium green background is a good idea I do not know. Lastly for users of the voiceover screen reader the buttons inside of the widget for the most part are not labeled. If the issues I mentioned above affect you I strongly recommend not upgrading.

by Robiedo

5/5/18 update:
First, thanks to the developer for responding to my original review. I’m not sure what good screen shots would do, but here’s a specific example from last week Monday, morning: I got to the bus stop and checked your app for the arrival of the next bus. It said 19 minutes and that the last bus had gone through four minutes earlier. Instead if waiting such a long time, I opted to jump in a shared bike that happened to be parked nearby. No sooner than I’d pedaled all of a mile (about five minutes later) and, whoosh, the bus goes flying by. All of relevant buses appearing in the schedule were displaying with the GPS tracking indicator, but none of the times was accurate. Maybe you could query Valley Transit about their useless signalling.
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I have relied upon TransitSubwayBusTimes in the Phoenix metro area for going on two years and consider it an essential part of my commute and even incidental use of public transit. However, it seems that recently it’s less accurate, even for buses that are supposedly being tracked with GPS. I’ll keep using it, because I really like its user interface and features, but I’m hoping, a lot, that the accuracy of arrival times improves—soon.

by RachelRiannaT

Ya’lls app is pretty great! I have used it ever since I upgraded my phone 4 months ago 💯😎 Really helpful with bus trips, train trips and travel in general! 💯 TransitSubwayBusTimes is almost perfect 🤩👌🏾My concern is when I opened TransitSubwayBusTimes today and saw a notification saying ( I will have access to to nervy lines and times until September 13th) PLEASE DON’t TELL ME YA’LL ARE PULLING THE “MONEY CARD” ON US USERS FROMS YEARS AGO TO NOW!! Please don’t make the mistake of making people pay money just to see lines and times, that’s stupid, that should be free for everyone, otherwise your app would be useless to download, I beg ya’ll to think on this, your app is good the way it is, and a lot of people rely on it for travel, including me who is a college student who commutes 💯 Please don’t be “greedy” like other apps and take away the reason why people down load TransitSubwayBusTimes in the first place 😭💯 Tour app is great, if you haven’t done that change to TransitSubwayBusTimes by then and beyond I would gladly give a full five star rating 💯😎 PROMISE 💯💯 Thank you for reading 💯

by Abso12345!

I mainly take the metro to get to and from the University of Houston. Downloaded TransitSubwayBusTimes around a year ago or two, its pretty great at showing me the nearest line to where I’m trying to leave from. It’s also pretty great letting you know if you’ll have to take a second bus and showing the walking distance to actually get to your destination. It even shows you the estimated time it would take if you took an Uber or Lyft. As a student I wanna make sure to arrive to my classes on time, so it’s great being able to see my options. Honestly much better than just looking at google maps imo. I’m not giving it a full 5 starts just because sometimes the bus will arrive either earlier or later then the time it gives you but that’s understandable it’s not always going to be 100% accurate. I get that same issue even when I use the cities official metro text service, where it sends the time schedule for the bus, like I said not going to ever be 100% because there’s a lot of other factors one needs to take into account like traffic etc. overall I would recommend TransitSubwayBusTimes to anyone not familiar with their local metro service like if your knew to the city or just taking the metro for the first time, it comes in handy if you want to make sure you’re getting on the right bus.

by RequiredNickname888

TransitSubwayBusTimes has helped me so much this summer to navigate the city. I think it’s clever that it uses other riders to help locate the buses in real time. The issues I have riding the buses are mainly with the Nashville bus system than with TransitSubwayBusTimes. One thing I wish were better is if TransitSubwayBusTimes gave extra warning or let you know the bus stop is on the opposite side of the road. I’ve found myself with not enough time to cross the street, watching the bus I wanted zoom by. I also have issues planning a route on occasion. I have to refresh multiple times to see all possible routes because TransitSubwayBusTimes only shows 3 at a time. It’s also not always possible to see when the next buses are coming once you’re at the navigation page, in case I like the route, but want to take the next pass. It is also not possible to edit a route once you start, which would be great if I wanted to get off at a different stop. Lastly, it takes way too long for TransitSubwayBusTimes to figure out the bus I’m waiting for is never going to show up. It just keeps updating the arrival time for the bus, making me believe the bus will be there, while I should be looking for a different way home. Other than that, it’s a great app, works better than google maps, and has saved me multiple times!

by Lisfolks

This is my go-to Transit app. However, in a recent update, TransitSubwayBusTimes started automatically changing to the next route time if it appears that I’m going to miss a bus - and it doesn’t allow me to return to the prior route schedule. One of the stops I use most often has the wrong lat/lon values. As a result, TransitSubwayBusTimes thinks I should be a block away from where the stop actually is. At the time the bus is supposed to be there, TransitSubwayBusTimes switches to the next route time, thinking I’m going to miss the bus. Then, I can’t see my transfer point any longer, till TransitSubwayBusTimes figures out that I’m on the right bus after all. This is very frustrating!!! TransitSubwayBusTimes should ASK me if I want to switch to the next route time or stay on the current route time!!! (Since TransitSubwayBusTimes is supposedly crowd-sourced, optimally it should notice that I’m catching the bus a block away, or let me note the correct location - but, no, it doesn’t offer that option!) So PLEASE put back the ability to KEEP the original route result even if it appears I’ve missed the bus!!!

by MiniDeathclaw

So I see there is a new system for TransitSubwayBusTimes upcoming. I have been using TransitSubwayBusTimes since I was a freshman in high school and am currently a junior, TransitSubwayBusTimes has been pretty accurate as new schedules are established but the new system will unfortunately make it difficult for students like myself to navigate using TransitSubwayBusTimes , seeing limited busses and may make it almost as inconvenient as using the papers distributed on the metros for their schedules. I do understand that this may become costly for the developers over time to run TransitSubwayBusTimes and I am fine with ads such as little bars on the top of the screen that roll but aren’t obnoxiously in the way but enough to gather funds from users that don’t have sufficient funds (teenagers/poor adults) to receive reliable; accurate times of the busses and keep the ability to see future busses later that day or other days. But I would like to thank the developers of having an app I was able to use for a few years now and it has been great for navigation thus very useful when you are trying to get around without a vehicle in the city.

by Eelaynem

I’m from the DC metro area but I go to college in NYC and I use the same app in both places, it works accurately in either city. If you’re serious about shaving minutes off your commute then I don’t really know what your needs are, but as someone who just wants a 2-5 minute buffer when I’m checking when my bus comes, TransitSubwayBusTimes is incredibly accurate and fits my needs perfectly. Currently using it in DC and TransitSubwayBusTimes even shows me real-time where I am on my own bus, including upcoming stops. I was wary about this feature because I use a line that has a lot of minor stops that are really closely spaced, so I thought that by the time the stop showed up on the Transit screen my bus would have already missed it, but it was accurate down to me seeing us pass the stop as TransitSubwayBusTimes said we were going by it. I love TransitSubwayBusTimes and unless some update makes it ridiculously hard to plan travel on it or something, I plan on using it for a very long time!

by Caseypenk

I’ve been looking for an app to help me track public transit times (specifically, NYC subway and bus times). I’ve been using mapping apps to do this for a long time but they don’t always have accurate arrival times.

Transit is specifically designed around public transit and shows you local stops on subway, train, and bus lines. The best feature is the ability to have it track your bus or train in real-time so other people can see it’s actual position. Really a game-changing feature when you consider how often the official arrival times are off or just difficult to find. My only complaint is that if you get on a bus that doesn’t show up on the MTA’s app (for technical reasons) then your bus won’t shop up in the Transit app, even when you turn on real-time tracking. Hopefully they fix this issue soon.

Very satisfied with these app as it really does the best job of helping you track bus, subway, and train times.

by Amazingbosscoffee

TransitSubwayBusTimes is essential for my travel to and from college. I've noticed however that the time it tells you to leave is way too late every time, and I end up missing the bus by a minute or two. Even leaving earlier than the recommended departure, I will miss the bus. Not only that, but it has no way of alerting you when you've taken the wrong bus. It says "Unplanned Detour" which is really inconvenient for someone new to public transport who doesn't know the stops for other buses. You'll believe you're on the right bus and there IS a detour, maybe because the stops are correct up until a certain point when really TransitSubwayBusTimes just can't track you because you're obviously not on the route of the bus you were supposed to take. Please find a way to fix this. I don't know if you could make some sort of route recognition that would know if you've taken an actual detour or if you're simply on the wrong bus. On top of that, it gave me an estimated arrival at my destination, changed to a half hour later. All when the bus was the WRONG bus. Why on earth would there be an estimated arrival for that, if the bus is never getting there in the first place?

by PoofyKitty

TransitSubwayBusTimes is great! Not only does it help me get a better ETA when I’m going somewhere but it makes sure I get there at the time I want to be there. Personally enjoy seeing the map show where my bus currently is and the notifications to remind you when to get off is very helpful.

Prefer to give 4.5 stars because I do have some feedback for improvements if the team sees my review. I just recently bought a Apple Watch and I know it has compatibility with TransitSubwayBusTimes but I was somewhat disappointed. I was expecting a smaller menu on TransitSubwayBusTimes so you may pick from a list of favorites and have TransitSubwayBusTimes give you the ASAP option for when you go. So when I’m on the bus or waiting instead of looking at my phone to see when my bus is arriving by the minutes or when to get off I could look at the watch and see oh it’s going to be here in 4min I should look out for it. And I should be off in 2 stops... I think just a minimalist menu be nice not just nearby line options. If it had this I would give 20stars!

by Mikki Troubles

I have been using the Transit app for quite a few years. I live in Brooklyn, NY and have always used it to travel all over the 5 boroughs. I prefer Transit over the MTA website and other apps, as I have always found it to be the most helpful, as it always provided me with the most efficient route to where I needed to go, and it was more accurate than any other website or app when it came to bus times, subway times, etc.

I also recently needed to contact their customer service to ask for help with something. Not only did they get back to me super quickly, they went above and beyond to provide me with what I needed (and then some!) without hesitation, and were very polite and professional.

I also appreciate their honesty and transparency around their new upgrade and having to charge for it. I also feel that their prices are reasonable and affordable. They are also very understanding and honor their word and offers!

by Ash-01

TransitSubwayBusTimes has been through my ups and downs; from moments to when I needed to view if it was worth running to catch the bus when i’m running late to moments where i have enough time sit down and plan a trip and see what transfer bus im going to take. Transit is the best thing ever invented and it’s very user friendly. I decided to pay for their annual membership because I wanted to help support a free app in which i use constantly and doesn’t fail me. I love the feature where we can see the buses real time movements if another Transit user presses ‘Go’. I also like how I can see what time i’m going to get to my destination while i’m riding the bus. My county also has two types of bus companies (one for the county and one for the metropolitan area) and TransitSubwayBusTimes has both companies all in one app. If i didn’t have Transit I would’ve had to use tow different websites which can sometimes not work properly. Thank you Transit team and thank you for the funny commentary under the “What’s new?” section on TransitSubwayBusTimes store

by BR3 BR3 F*****

Sometimes the last bus will come early an sometimes the last bus will go another route so they don’t have to pick up anyone so they can hurry and get their route over with I’ve seen it happen a couple of times or they will put bus not in service and that’s so so not right at all there is a lot of people that get off of work 1am to 2am an after a long day of work gotta sleep outside at the bus stop because some driver’s doesn’t wanna do their job right..... y’all say metro is friendly and that is such a lie y’all have drivers that has attitude problems an if they don’t like you for whatever reason they really will pass you up they don’t know if that person is going to work to a dr appointment an they make people late because they bring their personal issues to work with them or hold the pass against people we are all adults why can’t they act like they are an adult instead of a child my 13 year old act way better than some of your drivers an has better respect and manners than some of your drivers....!!!!!!

by MsQueenn

I like the crowd-sourcing feature and being able to watch the bus approaching in real time, but the redesign makes for a super frustrating app. It takes too many taps and swipes to navigate that aren’t all obvious. For instance, checking the complete schedule of a Line while currently in a GO session. It’s not very obvious that you have to swipe down the GO session to get to the schedule list of nearby lines.
And I liked how previously, on the same line, you could see the ETA of the next bus as well as what time that would be. Now you HAVE TO look at the full schedule to then get only the bus arrival times and not ETA. It’s a broken experience and quite annoying at that.
My other issue with the new full schedule list is that the earlier bus times were removed. I actually found it useful to see which arrivals have already passed. At least seeing one or two past arrivals would be helpful.
Please incorporate these features back into TransitSubwayBusTimes so I could give the star rating TransitSubwayBusTimes really deserves. I use it every day and hate to have less than an awesome experience.

by Ronnie Frey

This used to be my favorite app and I would tell everyone about it. There was nothing wrong with it it worked just fine. Then you guys updated it and the update is completely horrible it doesn’t work most of the time. Today I received a notification of a delay that affected my route to work. When I clicked on the notification it took me to TransitSubwayBusTimes and did not take me directly to the notification. I wanted to read the full notification but was not able to. When I went to the actual notifications portion of TransitSubwayBusTimes this particular notification wasn’t even there! On top of that all the notifications that were there were three days old! I have TransitSubwayBusTimes set to notify me at all times as well as I use this train the most. What did you do to make TransitSubwayBusTimes not work like it used to? Who’s in charge of testing this to make sure everything functions properly? Once again I’m giving you one star and if I could rate you zero stars I would. TransitSubwayBusTimes disappoints me daily now. It’s a shame. It was a BRILLIANT app before and worked almost perfectly and there was NOTHING that needed updating and you’ve succeeded at completely ruining it.

by Reustin

For years I’ve depended on Transit app and promoted it widely. But the last “update” was absolutely terrible. Previously, you could tap one option in the list and see a few more arrival times for that option while still seeing other nearby transit options in the list. That was what made TransitSubwayBusTimes awesome, then you got rid of it. You guys are fixated on with forcing people to use GO (to the point that you’re covering up my map with it). But many of your users don’t want or need GO, as they are very familiar with local transit lines and simply need to see the arrival times in one place. Please put it back the way it was! I know the info is still there but it takes way more tapping around to to see it, and when you’re trying to quickly decide whether to make a certain connection, those extra few moments are critical. And please, at least let users disable GO in settings instead of shoving it down their throats. (Or make it a separate product perhaps?) When a company loses touch with what made people love their product it’s very discouraging indeed. I’m noticing that many users have written similar reviews.

by ZichaelMulch

My commute relies on a under-serviced route and if I miss my bus, I will have to wait an hour for the next one. Needless to say that puts a a lot of pressure on me to make sure I’m on time. Having TransitSubwayBusTimes is so helpful because it reassures me that I have not missed the bus if it is not running on time! I would love to give it a fifth star but sometimes I find that it can give me lofty directions when I try to go somewhere I have not been before. What I mean by that is I always double check google when planning my trip and sometimes the transit app misses some well times trips google finds. Also, I live in Boston and we have this subway line that branches out into four different outbound locations; instead of separating the stops of these routes out from one another they’re combined into one list where the terminating stop on one branch is succeeded by the beginning stop of another branch. It’s just ultimately confusing especially if you’re new to the city.

by Ramsay Ashwin

TransitSubwayBusTimes is truly amazing with all the capabilities that it has. I live in Los Angeles and it accurately depicts all the lines, with the majority of them having real time predictions. This is always the first app I check when planning a journey anywhere. I love the feature to turn and off minimizing walking because sometimes I take my bike with me on my trips, and I can do portions of the trip on my bike. The only problems that I would have with TransitSubwayBusTimes is that recently it has been showing very few busses with real-time info. The majority of times have just been the scheduled times. I immediately jumped to the conclusion that this wasn’t TransitSubwayBusTimes ’s fault, but I checked other apps like Citymapper and it did have real-time predictions for the exact same bus. Furthermore, half the time I click GO, it doesn’t show the happy face in the top left corner, meaning that I’m not providing real time information back to the system. I’d love to help more but if it doesn’t let me there is nothing I can do. The reason I am still rating this five stars is because I would still use TransitSubwayBusTimes over any other one I have.

by Marcopolo581

Now as a tech savvy enthusiast, I always aim to test out dozens of apps just to know what works and what just simply doesn’t work. For a while, transit slowly but surely growing and over the past 4-5 years, as a New Yorker, I can confidently and how heartedly say that TransitSubwayBusTimes is truly one of the best apps out there!

-Subway countdown clocks? Pffft, who needs them? TRANSIT has been RIGHT for the arrival of trains for the past 2-3 years now (mark my words, and I’m very avid on time frames).
-When there’s incidents affecting your line, guarantee you won’t hear it on the news, but you’ll definitely get an alert with Transit, whether you’re in TransitSubwayBusTimes or not.
-If you’re not sure how to find a certain subway stop, TRANSIT slays at showing you markers where you are exactly located and when to leave in order to catch that train you just aren’t quite sure is still running or not (even if it’s every 20 min on the weekends late at night)

2 things: I would LOVE to see an integration for Juno, VIA, and ARRO/ CURB apps as well, it would truly make TransitSubwayBusTimes even more unique and stellar.

Also, there’s an amazing app called iTransNYC and I would LOVE if Transit integrated their app and notification styles with them. Before Transit, iTransNYC was my go to app. Would be really great if a great app got picked up by an even greater app.

Transit is already slaying other NYC subway applications. Why look any further?

:-)