CapMetro Reviews

by Will Grello Fortin With Will

App used to work greats around the time they changed the bus routes and all that back in like June or July I think, stopped using the bus as much and now that I’m trying to spend my money wiser I have decided to take the bus again. Revisiting the ol’ cap metro app and every time I try and open it it force closes. Realized I needed to update my software so did that and CapMetro opened up once and from then on every time I try to open it it goes to the loading screen and then force closes. Now I have to pay cash like a caveman. CapMetro is not faster easier and better it actually just doesn’t work. Please fix it.

by Monkapants

CapMetro is okay when it works. it’s nice to be able to buy tickets, view schedules/routes, and see mostly accurate live bus movements. i’m glad for the cashless, contactless options. the QR tickets scan on the bus maybe half the time, though that may be a scanner machine problem. but the very basic, essential trip planner feature is terribly inconsistent and quite frequently doesn’t give me “bus only” results - even when the start is a bus stop/depot, the destination auto-populates by name, the walking distance/transfer/etc parameters are maxed, and my trip is within them. i have learned to use apple maps for planning, which never has these issues. it’s incredibly frustrating and time-consuming trying to get it to work so i can save/quickly view/follow a trip (and busing already takes usually 2-3x longer than driving). these issues aside, public transport is already very taxing for me as i am disabled. additionally, NONE of the KIND clinics auto-populate, which means that other LGBTQIA2+ who rely on bus and CapMetro may not be able to access their healthcare.

by Lady Old Soul

To whomever is developing CapMetro for updates, here’s a tip: STOP ELIMINATING PREVIOUS OS FROM THE UPDATES. Thanks to your shortsightedness, my app won’t open half the time. When it does, I hate to spend 20-35 minutes opening it, waiting 30 seconds for it to close out without getting any farther than the loading screen, force closing it, and trying again. And again. And again. Ad nauseam, until I can finally open the passes I paid for and show the drivers. It’s obnoxious and stupid and UNNECESSARY. Put the old OS back, or make it so we can revert to the earlier version. The iPhones gen 6S and earlier can no longer update to the current OS, because the insatiable greed of Apple is apparently as stupid as the update you just made. This is not sustainable. I will not be forced to spend hundreds of dollars to buy a new phone simply because developers can’t pay attention to what they’re actually doing to the people who USE this platform. Get your crap straight.

by Utstudebt

Cap metro, please re-make CapMetro. The experience for a local as well as an out-of-towner is frustrating, cryptic, and unhelpful. The only part of CapMetro that I was hoping to use was the schedule, but it was difficult I understand, glitchy, and totally unhelpful. I want to be able to see how soon a particular bus will arrive at the stop closest to me, so that I can walk outside and catch it right on time (or be out there a few minutes early). Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to use CapMetro for that, as the schedule feature is impossible to read or understand or navigate. It assumes I am familiar with every route in austin, rather than only being familiar with the stop close to my house.
Please fix this, capital metro, making the busses easier to use will get more people using it than your weird bus ads.

by Sjbaba

I’m sorry to say that I cannot stand using CapMetro. From the slow lag times with every click, to the difficult layout that frequently bugs when navigating, I rarely rely on correct information from CapMetro. The whole point of having CapMetro is to either plan your route geographically or use the timed information to plan your day. I’d just as soon walk up to a stop without my phone and rely on my luck since I cannot rely on either of those aforementioned things with this app. If CapMetro isn’t responsible for inaccurate times posted then who is? Plenty of other cities have reliable information on their app, I’d suggest looking at those to reconfigure this one. 👎🏽

by PM_me_guinea_pigs

While CapMetro is extremely functional (roughly accurate, lets you buy tix, etc), I’m taking off three stars for the following reasons:

One star for evading even the most basic of reasonable accountability: the disclaimer in CapMetro claims they are not responsible for any false information, despite being the official app where you can buy tickets electronically and every bus driver accepts said electronic ticket as a valid purchase. Could you imagine if I ran a store with a sign on the front door saying I’m not responsible for any mislabeled prices or items? They can’t even own up to the lowest, most reasonable levels of responsibility and accountability for their own official app. Yay government!

Two stars for battery life. I literally watched my phone go from 100% to 84% in the two minutes (no exaggeration) it took me to open CapMetro and plan a trip in it from my house to downtown. I’m scared to use CapMetro when I’m out and about because I’m worried my phone will be dead before the bus comes and then I can’t get on cause I can’t prove I bought a ticket. Pathetic. Make an app that isn’t so hard on the battery life!

by Aidsprest

CapMetro is mostly okay - especially for a transit app. It’s very laggy though which is annoying when you are getting on to the bus and dealing with an (understandably) impatient driver. This problem is made SUBSTANTIALLY worse by the very odd fact that e-passes need to be activated basically before every ride?? I truthfully don’t understand why when I activate a week pass for example, it doesn’t stay activated. That way I can just open the ticket (however laggy) and just show the driver without having to activate it again.

This isn’t an app problem, but perhaps drivers should be trained to look at the expiration date of the ticket once we click on the “use tickets” page. It comes before activation which means they do not have to wait for passengers to load tickets. Just a thought.

by CyndiTC

Improvements to make CapMetro easier to use

Tickets
-Ability to use/show your ticket while you’re using the “Trip Planner” feature rather than exiting the feature and having to re-plan a trip.

Live Status
-Ability to see the bus status while using the “Trip Planner”
-Ability to display only certain bus numbers while looking at the “Live Map”

Alerts
-None of the alarms work
-It would be GREAT to have alerts (texts or within CapMetro ) of delays

Navigation
-While using the “Trip Planner” when you click on a portion that you need to walk a map with GPS opens up and is a GREAT feature. Pleas add the same feature when clicking on the map for the bus stop location in the “Trip Planner”

Lastly, this isn’t really about CapMetro per se; there are a couple buses that go north from downtown around the same timeframe and are named 980 but some skip the Howard station. This has left many passengers very angry and extremely delayed getting to Howard. Could they have different names or a way to easily identify these different buses?
Thanks!

by BL In KS

Sooooo slow to load, and 7 times out of 10, it crashes before fully loading. As others have mentioned, you have to time the display of your ticket just right — do it too soon & it will probably sign you out right before the bus arrives; if you wait until the bus pulls up, you will probably keep people waiting while CapMetro loads or you sign back in. On the plus side, it’s easy to buy passes once you get your account set up, and the trip planner works pretty well. But I don’t usually use CapMetro to check schedules— I have Safari bookmarks set up to quickly get to the routes I frequently ride.

by 15278362

Everytime I buy a 30 day pass it will only work for a few days and then the ticket will no longer open. I contacted cap metro and all they had to say was that the drivers were allowed to charge me extra fare. I’m not sure why it’s so hard for them to just look at the expiration date on the ticket just like they would if a paper ticket won’t scan. But instead they just want to charge me again. Fix the bugs or at least update your drivers on how to look at the expiration date which is right on the front screen before opening the ticket.

by Psychicdaydreams

It takes too many taps to activate a bus pass (sometimes CapMetro freezes while I'm trying to show my pass to the bus driver!), and it often crashes when I try to use the trip planner.
Additionally, for routes with multiple variants at different times, it would REALLY help if the variants were clearly displayed in-app, so that I don't have to check the crashy trip planner and scroll all the way down to see if this next bus will take me where I want to go.
I would also appreciate the ability to add bus stop nicknames, because often the name of the stop is unmemorable.

by Starburstssssss

Lots of positive about CapMetro . Payments are easy and fast, purchasing the tickets is simple, and saving money on a week’s or month’s worth of tickets in one is fantastic. Plus, seeing 95% accurate arrival updates is great.

However, the whole reason I use CapMetro is to ride the bus. And when the tickets glitch (it’s supposed to open to show a blue screen if the ticket is active) that makes me stressed out every time I wanna ride. And mostly bus drivers don’t care, but every now and then they think I’m trying to bypass the system with an old ticket or something. So I feel skeevy when I actually paid for the ticket and am trying to do the best I can to prove that the ticket is real. If I didn’t rely on the bus so often, and had cash on hand more often, I wouldn’t use this ticket function. But, this is where I am. I’ve reinstalled CapMetro multiple times and it’s the same thing.

by LivingLegend453

Ever since the update I haven’t been able to use any of the tickets I bought because they all say they are invalid really frustrating how this never happened till the update

by Jeffersonnnnnnn

CapMetro has a lot of great features, but I can’t give it 5 stars because it lacks some obvious iPhone integration.

Pros: fares, passes and ticket purchases in CapMetro , live departure data, live predictive maps, and better trip planning than Apple Maps transit directions.

Cons: passes and tickets aren’t integrated with the Wallet App (c’mon, every airline app has this!), no ApplePay integration to pay for passes.

by Bcereal

For public transit, CapMetro is impressive. CapMetro is nice in mapping your route and I love that I can purchase and use my pass in CapMetro . It would be nicer if it incorporated gps to better see where you are on the route. I noticed some of the busses I took on my trip were not necessarily in-sync with the actual progress the bus was taking. I accidentally requested the wrong stop because I wasn't familiar with the area and the status bar showed we were passed that. It would also be nice / more user friendly if it would let me save the route I'm on (instead of having to re-search it AND if there was a GPS feature to show what route I'm on. This would be a nice integrated filter to support what busses are on time.

by Beef O'Brady

Annoying issue recently with CapMetro signing me out without me choosing to sign out. Happens when I try to pull up my pass which then puts me in the position of scrambling to enter my email and password to sign in again and access my ticket as I’m trying to board the bus.

Everything else is pretty good. CapMetro provides just as much info as Cap Metro’s website and the ability to purchase and use a digital pass is super convenient.

by ATX-Dan

Functionally CapMetro worked great for me. It was easy for me to buy and use tickets for the metro rail, and look up schedules.

MAJOR bug though, whenever I opened CapMetro on my iPhone 6s, it would drain my battery extremely fast. I could easily watch my battery tick down a percent about every 10 seconds. I tried playing around with different settings to prevent CapMetro from using my location or cellular data, hoping that would help. I never could figure out what was causing the issue though.

by 77387

This is a great app if you are using the Metro. You can buy fares, look at schedules, and find where buses are located. Some suggestions...There needs to be a way to add a paper ticket to the mobile app. I get a paper ticket through my company and I wish I could just transfer it to my app so I don’t have to hold on to the same pass for a month. Also I wish it gave you notifications on when a bus is about to pull up to your stop. And...a way for you to keep track of where you are along the route and it tells you what stop is next. This would make it easier for new riders. Just a couple of suggestions. Overall a great app!

by Dennis Says:

Hello everyone, by and large- if you ever want to meet some of the most friendly and helpful bus drivers in the whole country- just hop onto a metro and ask for assistence. I recently moved here, and was very dis-oriented at first because of the continual cloud cover. These bus drivers helped me immensely. They need to put official tip jars in the front of the bus- thats what needs to happen- i would put spare change in there everytime!!!! Thanx Dennis H

by Brokenlibrarian

I am absolutely blown away by the new update. I was concerned that the drastic changes might be for the worse, but nearly everything has been overhauled in a positive way. Your currently active pass is now the first thing you see when you open CapMetro , which is a big deal by itself, but they also improved the process for purchasing new passes (Apple Pay!), the trip planner is actually usable now, the UI for finding nearby stops and times now shows the routes in the search menu so you don’t have to select each one to figure out which is the one you want, and so many more little touches.

It’s obvious that they paid attention to complaints about the previous version and did a lot of UI testing. Now if only the city could actually implement a useful light rail network...