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Same happens in Seattle (and we have some nice services that show you the GPS locations of all the busses on the route, so you can be pretty sure an empty one is right on its way)

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That app was built by a UW student and uses estimated data based on the schedule, as far as I know. It's not accurate... unless things have changed in the last year or so since I moved.

It's always been real-time location data. At one point it was pretty low-tech (odometer hooked up to a radio transmitter) but it's now been GPS-based for ~5 years.

Are we talking about OneBusAway?

These days OneBusAway is just one frontend for the data, the Transit app has the same information.

When that app (OneBusAway) first came out, it was extremely accurate. It completely went to crap when Metro took over maintenance.

It's very accurate now. I don't know when your experience with it was.

It pulls from the same source that Google Maps currently does, so feel free to use whichever you prefer.

I last used it about 4 or so years ago, so of course things may have changed. It was appallingly bad though, to the point where it was no more accurate than posted schedules on the routes I rode. I just quit using it because it was so thoroughly useless. The sad thing is that it previously had worked extremely well. Glad to hear they've fixed the issues.

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