MTA Bus Time Reviews

MTABusTime is essential for bus travel in New York. Compared to the service itself, MTABusTime would be like 25 stars compared to the 1 that is the service itself. Don’t get me wrong, it has its benefits, but the MTA service is a very flawed one. The MTA has five problems: there aren’t enough busses, some busses run late / they run on a different schedule, they’re never clean (seriously one bus I was on smelt like someone’s sphincter exploded all over the floor!), some drivers have a serious attitude problem (this one is rare but it depends on your bus), and this service is way too expensive for what you get in return ($2.75 per ride really piles up over time). If you don’t have MTABusTime , get it. The only issues I have are that sometimes the time will be inaccurate for a bus while the distance is accurate and sometimes a bus won’t be marked on the map. Seriously, GET IT.

MTABusTime gives the distance and approximate time until arrival for any bus stop. It's fast and accurate (except for the few buses with broken GPS). The arrival time is adjusted for traffic conditions. You can search for nearby stops, add from a map, or search for text, and you can save favorite stops. I use this every day and it has never crashed.

Room for improvement: the bus stop names should signify the direction of travel so you don't have to use trial and error to find the one you need. Also, I have the same problem as another reviewer with the map jumping around when zooming.

Fixed with last update - thank you!

So this no longer applies (currently)............ MTABusTime was great until it was updated (2 days ago). It took away previously saved favorites and will not allow an iPhone X user to touch the back button or the favorites star to add a favorite stop, because they're too high on the screen and tucked behind the time and signal strength, on the phone screen. Please adjust the locations to where they were previously, or where they're at least useable. Thank you!

So first, MTABusTime works great when it works. It’s essential to my commute and sanity.

However, there is MTABusTime ’s favorite excuse of “check your internet connection” when the fault is clearly on the part of MTABusTime (every other Internet based app works).

The previous version of MTABusTime had a refresh button that I could press incessantly when that happened. In this version, they took it away. So not only can I not get to see where the bus is after I see that message, but I also can’t refresh to see my bus’ progress. I’ve tried going out of my bus schedule and back in to no avail.

On top of that, I had favorites saved in the previous app and when it upgraded to the new version, it deleted all of my favorites.

I was excited when the new version came out because I thought they would have addressed the really irritating bug, but ultimately they made it more unbearable.

I like MTABusTime and the features are great compared to using the browser version. The one big problem that there have been no updates to correct is the constant errors stating “Something went wrong, please check your internet connection”. This happens on cellular with an excellent Verizon connection as well as WiFi. I’ve emailed the developer and aside from one response that ask for further detail, I have not heard back or seen an update and it’s been a year. It’s a good app aside from the annoying constant hiccups.

There is a feature to save certain stops and routes for quick access. Great idea for busses and bus stops you use frequently, especially when time is an issue. However, it doesn't work. A few hours after you save those favorites, they disappear and you'll find yourself having to navigate through the search results again. Please, MTA, fix this bug and let me actually favorite the stops I use, as the feature was intended.

You would think that with billions of dollars in the bank they could find a developer that new what the hell they were doing. Half the time MTABusTime says there no internet connection, although every other app seems to be able to connect just fine. Another quarter of the time most stops say they have no data. The last quarter, when MTABusTime actually does it hat it’s supposed to do, it’s nice. That’s why they get 2 stars. It’s like a participation award. Mostly useless, but at least the kid feels less horrible.

MTABusTime has a minor bug when used on iPhone X. The developers did not use “safe area” boundaries for the map. This means that if you launch MTABusTime from app suggestions, the “
If you enter the map on an iPhone X you must force close MTABusTime to exit the map.

This is helpful for planning when to arrive at bus stop. But it does crash a lot and say buses not being tracked at this time. Which is annoying because u have to refresh or close app and restart. Sometimes. It says layover but in one second it’s less than one stop away. Accuracy is not 100. But it is helpful overall. If they fix the crashing and the accuracy. I would give 5 stars.

MTABusTime doesn't remember my favorites.

It's great to have live times but It would also be helpful to provide scheduled bus stop times as well because when a bus is scheduled for a layover, I have no idea how long that might be for and so MTABusTime becomes useless when I'm trying to figure out my options.

Please make MTABusTime work without an internet connection even if this means that live times are not available. I often use MTABusTime on the subway to figure out which stop to get off at in order to transfer to a bus.

This saves me time instead of just running out the door standing outside... but it doesn’t show all buses in route. Like this morning, it was said that a bus would arrive to my stop until 4:35 am. But I go outside and there is a bus pulling up to my stop! I had to run across the street to made sure the caught the bus so I wouldn’t be late for work. Thank god traffic is low at 4am because i live on a very busy street, I wouldn’t have never made the bus at any other time.

MTABusTime is quite useful but very frustrating. It will give you times for when buses are coming, but half of the time a dialog will pop saying there was an error with the internet connection. If I had to guess, this is their way of throttling requests. It would be just as valid to cache responses for the last 10-15 seconds. Please fix this glaring issue and MTABusTime would go to 5 stars.

I use this every time I need to catch a bus. What would really be useful so I don't have to remember the bus stop codes is if my favorites actually stayed on MTABusTime . It takes forever to type out intersections or scroll through bus routes to find the stop I need if I'm on my way to the stop, so having easy access to stops I frequently use would make MTABusTime perfect for what it is.

There are buses that are not registered or have their GPS off rendering MTABusTime useless.

I routinely check the whereabouts of the next bus as I walk to the nearest bus stop. One incident where MTABusTime had the next bus as "At the terminal" (about 2.3 miles away), which takes about 13 minutes from the terminal to my regular bus stop, I went to grab a drink nearby and as soon as I got out, a bus drives right passed me (with people inside). The entire transaction took no more than 5 minutes.

The MTA couldn't even get this right! Big disappointment.

i've been using MTABusTime without problems since it came out. i don't just love it, I need it.

issue: a couple of days ago the map loads incredibly zoomed out. it's inconvenient to zoom in to my route. also, the route doesn't always load properly once i've zoomed in.

i reinstalled MTABusTime and it keeps happening. help!