Hacker News Reader

Comment by pythux | Hacker News Reader

Wow that looks really useful, I did not know of this app. Did anyone here on HN use it successfully? Having a single app to allow navigating cities and buying tickets is something I have been wishing for lately (especially in cities where there is no way to buy tickets either online or via an app).

View on HN

Pretty much everyone uses it in London. I've continued using it in Madrid with great success. It's generally very, very good in the cities where it is available.

This is a Google Maps complement, not a replacement, as Citymapper only does navigation within a city, so you can't plan inter-city travel. Also it's optimized for A -> B navigation, not so much for "city discovery", travel research, or more complex itineraries, for which I keep using Google Maps.

I use Citymapper extensively on trips to cities it covers.

It's at its best in London (where, IIRC, the dev team is based): there, it's a life-saver. It's also effective in other first-rank anglophone world cities, such as New York. I've found its coverage can be patchy/incomplete in some cities, presumably because the data sources they aggregate are incomplete or inaccurate: at its worst, it degrades gracefully to the state of an offline maps app with a public transit route-finder.

It has been around for some years and they used to integrate with Lyft: I think the idea is to tie into transit pass apps as a way to monetize their service.

I once used it in Berlin (I'm not from Berlin) when there were unexpected line closures/delays. I could explain to the locals what was going on and the best routes to use. That was simply using the app. It had more info than the local staff/info screens.

I used it in New York, and it also knew about line closures which other apps weren’t aware of.

One thing it’s bad at (ironically because it was made in London) is the data model for Tube stations, it seems to think a Tube station is a point, whereas they often sprawl underground over large distances. It doesn’t have much of a concept that you can be walking for 10 minutes to connect between lines, and will make dodgy suggestions on that basis.

The app certainly does take into account transfer times between lines. If you also require accessible transport it'll further take into account the transfer times by measuring the amount of lifts you need to take.

In London you can buy discounted weekly passes through them now. Working from home for just one day will negate the cost saving though, especially if you’re out in zone 4.

I don’t know how they undercut TfL on the price but I presume they’re doing something tricky with redistributing monthly or annual passes.

They pre-purchase annual oyster cards and sell them back to you at a weekly rate. They recently got Apple Pay which is really useful with the express travel option so you don't need to use touch/face id to tap in.

They still have consistent problems with randomly charging you random amounts on top of the weekly cost. It's a normal MasterCard so you can check it on the TfL website, but I've had to work with them a few times to get refunded from random extra charges (usually 0.50 to sometimes 7 quid) which they can't explain why they happen.

I work for Transport for London and I advise people to use citymapper rather than the official TfL tools.

I use it daily in Lyon. I like the notifications sent every morning to tell me which bus is the fastest, as my commute to work can be done in different ways.

The official app from the public transport network was revamped last month, and now copies a lot the UX of Citymapper[1], albeit with worse performance. The app use some weird caching system, and sometimes, even after refreshing twice, you don't get the correct timetable, and it's especially bad at reporting traffic alerts. Citymapper never failed me like this.

[1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.micropole....

I used it in Manchester and it has hands down the best app UX I've ever used. It did just the right thing at the right time. Shows you exactly where you are regarding your stops, vibrates when it's time to get off, keeps working when you have no data or GPS, and asks you if you want to resume your previous trip if you open it after you close it during a trip.

I am extremely extremely impressed by how absolutely perfect the UX of this app is. I don't know who designed it, but congrats to them. If you haven't used it yet, you must.

I use Citymapper over Google Maps all the time in London, and in other cities where it exists.

Last week, I landed in Brussels and needed to catch the train. Google Map's best route was a 40 minute wait for the next train. I opened Citymapper and it suggested a train that, although timetabled for 5 minutes ago, was actually delayed by 10 minutes.

The data coming into Citymapper seems to be much more reliable. Google Maps is a great general tool that works anywhere, but Citymapper puts great attention to work perfectly within cities.

I love it when I'm in a city with Citymapper. I've used it to get around Paris, Hamburg and Berlin. It's slick, fun to use and has nailed multi-modal transport - especially since it considers walking a thing which humans are capable of.

I still resort to instructional YouTube videos + ticket machines for tickets, though.

I live in Lisbon, Portugal. I use CityMapper with public transport to get around, and it is very good - I particularly appreciate the 'Get Me Home' button. Residents here can get a monthly pass on ALL public transport in the greater Lisbon region for 40 Euros, so I guess that helps too!

In large urban cities, it's the best app available and far superior to Google Maps.

Multiple transit options with real-time info, delays, prices, and solid offline support. Shows exactly where you are on your trip in terms of signs and stops. Also has little details like which exit facing which direction to leave when getting out at a station which makes all the difference.

I use it often, mostly Berlin and Hamburg (but also Paris, Tokyo and Lisbon): I do not own a car so I mostly walk or use public transportation and the way they handle subways and other types of PT is the best for me.

It’s also really useful for seeing when transport will arrive. Just going into the map mode you will see icons for bus stops, stations, trams etc and you can tap on them to see all the arrivals. Great feature.

Works quite well in Singapore, excepting the occasional glitch with walking routes. And noticeably better than Google Maps at finding public transport connections.

Extensively in London, regularly in Barcelona area and last time I was in Amsterdam. I recommend it to anyone here (Barcelona) since it is not widely known.

The fun part this guys figured out there was demand for a bus line in London just looking at the data, and Transport for London awarded them a licence.

I use it all the time when I'm in a city where they have coverage but Apple Maps doesn't. It exists for a long time already.

I’ve used it in NY and Tokyo. Fantastic app.

London all the time. Very accurate. Barcelona and Paris seem fine too

I've used it in NYC and Boston - it works really well.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com