Transport app Citymapper trials its own smart bus service in London

[edgyswingset]

The article says:

> Imagine if every bus, boat, and train in London was kitted out with sensors and counters, with the data made available to third-party service providers — this could help cities manage transport infrastructure far more effectively.

And my reaction is, "Imagine if we had more buses and investment in public infrastructure to begin with."

In fairness, public infrastructure is already miles better in London than most U.S. cities. So the idea of tricked out buses with good smartphone integration seems a lot more realistic to me than if this were done in the U.S.

[calpaterson]

>> Imagine if every bus, boat, and train in London was kitted out with sensors and counters, with the data made available to third-party service providers — this could help cities manage transport infrastructure far more effectively.

> And my reaction is, "Imagine if we had more buses and investment in public infrastructure to begin with."

Well in London all the bus and train data is made available to third-party service providers. That is how citymapper exists

[pjc50]

It's also miles better than most UK cities, which is occasionally a sore point. The rest of the country has to put up with Stagecoach buses which are less reliable at twice the price.

(Except Edinburgh, which also has publicly funded cheap buses)

[peteretep]

    > In fairness, public infrastructure is
    > already miles better in London than most
    > U.S. cities

Just most?

[codingmyway]

London underground trains are fitted with sensors that can tell the weight of each carriage and there's a good chance that the data will be available via Transport For London's API, if it isn't already (I worked on the API two years ago)

City mapper has their own data sources but a lot is still from the public API that TFL provides for free with the reasoning that app developers will do a better job than TFL could.

[f_allwein]

Hmm. Making your app profitable by running a fleet of buses seems a bit... ambitious.

Background: Everybody in London uses Citymapper and nobody uses Google Maps. It is a great app. London Buses are also very good. As has been pointed out, they have GPS sensors. There is also a sophisticated infrastructure behind them, e.g. a control room that tells drivers to turn around and go back mid-rout if the buses are too unevenly distributed. See e.g. the BBC's Route Masters documentary if you can find it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02znsx2

As has also been pointed out here, London Transport does not make a profit (although their public funding is constantly shrinking). So any new entrant has to be more profitable than them with a much smaller market share. Wonder if that is possible if you only differentiate yourself by technology. We'll see.

[fennecfoxen]

> There is also a sophisticated infrastructure behind them, e.g. a control room that tells drivers to turn around and go back mid-rout if the buses are too unevenly distributed.

Yeah, it's really sophisticated; it means that if I catch a 3 bus signed for Crystal Palace there's about a 33% chance that it dumps me in Brixton to wait an extra twenty minutes in the rain, instead of taking me all the way home.

[ForHackernews]

In my experience, Google Maps is really terrible outside the United States. It doesn't seem to understand that in the UK, a narrow country lane might have a speed limit of 60 mph, but nobody could ever drive that speed on it. It's constantly proposing insane detours off A roads onto back lanes obstructed by sheep and farm equipment.

Unlike Citymapper, Google Maps doesn't have a notion of multimodal transport: cycling to a train station, for example. Citymapper also doesn't "lose" your in-progress journey if you click the wrong thing or close the app.

[thiscatis]

"Everybody in London uses Citymapper and nobody uses Google Maps."

Well I live in London and actually prefer Google Maps directions over CityMapper which I think is slow to start and a bit slow in fetching and updating alternative routes.

I do like the "preferred tube car" to use based on your entry / exit tube station but after a while you don't need the actual app for this as they don't change.

[cjrp]

I feel like London is just the test city since it's where their offices are. Maybe the plan is to fine-tune the platform here and then expand to cities which are not as well served by public transport?

[iicc]

Actual bus operations are run by private companies though (which is not the bit I would expect citymapper to be good at/interested in).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Buses#Bus_operations

[bernardlunn]

Agree. Love Citymapper and love London buses and tube - this seems like massive overeach

[nhf]

This sounds a lot like the on-demand(ish) bus service called Bridj which just shut down here in Boston. [1] They promised popup bus routes just like Citymapper has, but it ended up that a lot of the "routes" they constructed were essentially missing gaps in the MBTA's bus/subway system.

The bus route generation tool that they mention seems to be very promising. Hopefully the realtime demand data is the piece that Bridj was missing, as it would be very cool to see this kind of stuff take off in other areas. I wish them all the success in the world - hopefully this works out for them.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/1/15501764/bridj-on-demand-b...

[Grue3]

There's a functioning service called Chariot in Bay Area (and Austin, for some reason). [1] They seem to have quite a lot of routes, although most of them are just charter routes for the big tech companies.

[1] https://www.chariot.com/

[_m8fo]

I wonder if it is actually possible to make money in the commoditized transportation business. Virtually all government transportation organizations lose money -- luckily for them they're governmentally funded (MBTA loses money [1], which is relevant since there was recently a bus service in Boston that shut down).

[1] https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/02/28/mbta-shrinks-it...

[martinald]

There are quite a few exceptions to this. Sort the second table on this page by %age: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio

FWIW TfL in London has to break even across all modes (operationally, at least) by 2018.

You'll notice there is an exceptionally high correlation between operational returns and city density.

[acdha]

> Virtually all government transportation organizations lose money

So do highways — they're all investments which make things better for private citizens and businesses. You have to look at the total economic impact — i.e. not having public transit would entail either trillion-dollar freeway construction projects, the economic hit of massive traffic jams, or some combination of the two.

[ZeroGravitas]

The more interesting question is if they provide greater value to the taxpayer than they cost.

[anguswithgusto]

Cool initiative. I've yet to find a reason to switch from Transit to Citymapper in NYC, but it's always exciting to see pure tech companies (like Snapchat) try their hand at physical products.

The Citymapper folks are obviously very smart and I am stoked to see how this pilot project works out!

[Nav_Panel]

I like Citymapper's hybrid/multi-mode directions, such as taking the train to Citibike -- I like its Citibike support in general, it has a good real-time overlay. Citymapper also does a good job with nights/weekend subway closures.

I don't just use Citymapper, though. I also have Google Maps and Transit installed. I prefer Google Maps' subway overlay/general map. I only use Transit for nearby train/bus schedules.

[2manyredirects]

Interesting comment regarding Transit - as a Londoner who went to NYC for the first time last year I didn't even contemplate looking up another app; I just opened up CityMapper and it said "It looks like you're in New York. Switch City?", so it's pretty seamless.

A few years ago I'd definitely have trawled the App Store and I'm sure I'd have found Transit, but it just goes to show the power of a good, reliable interface and considered rollout to ensure you're always the go-to product if someone is aware of you.

[callesgg]

Is is simply a small buss run by a private company?

I don't understand why it is a "smart buss".

[simonw]

"It’s got tracking software for real time integration with the app, passenger counting, and a driver app.

We built software for everything, including realtime operational control to driver management to scheduling systems. We’re reinventing how to think about all of these in the realtime world. We’ve taken systems that haven’t traditionally talked to each other and integrated them."

[twic]

It's got a microchip in it.

[sotojuan]

I really enjoy city mapper but find their "search" to be subpar in NYC. Search by address works fine, but if you search a place by name sometimes gives me random places in the other side of the country.

[yexponential]

Yeah, its quite the same in London. In that case I switch to maps, but it isn't very often for me.

[mstade]

Does anyone know how citymapper makes money; or if they aren't making any money yet what's their path to profitability?

[vimoranon]

According to Glassdoor they save money by treating staff like shit, make them work crazy hours and pay them inappropriately. But hey, you work for a great vision.

[robinjfisher]

They don't make any money at the moment. To date, the application is free and they have declined to include advertising in it.

[whywhywhywhy]

Why not sell your data to actual public transport to make their systems better?

Why must startups keep reinventing busses (without the poor people)

[underwater]

Busses without the poor people seems to be an American dream. In Australia and London it's "acceptable" to ride the bus, but in The Bay Area at least it seemed to be for "weirdos" only.

[codingmyway]

TFl has the data and City Mapper use a lot of it but with their own additional heuristics.

Anyone can write an app that consumes the data. https://api.tfl.gov.uk/

[komali2]

Nobody's buying, I'd imagine.

[cabalamat]

When they said smart bus I imagined they meant the routes were determined in real time according to where people wanted to go.

[andreasklinger]

My guess is that this is a PoC to show the value of their data to other cities

[ainiriand]

Pay individually for a service that could be much better with collective funding. I dont see the good in this approach.

[JackFr]

It seems the next step in transport disruption. If Uber and Lyft can revolutionize taxicabs, why not take a shot at sclerotic and inefficient public transport.

[Doctor_Fegg]

Public transport in London is neither sclerotic nor inefficient.

[vkou]

Public transport in most parts of the world may be sclerotic, but is far more efficient at getting people where they need to go then privately owned automobiles or chauffeurs.

[bbcbasic]

What does sclerotic mean?

"an inability or reluctance to adapt or compromise"?