Carless? Public Transportation Apps Help Keep you Mobile
Living in Texas and trying to stay mobile without using a car can be tough. While I have a car, this summer I chose to try commuting to work by bus instead of driving. I initially downloaded the Ride Austin iPhone app as a mobile method to help me conquer public transportation in Austin. My $2.99 investment was worth every penny — I literally would be lost without it.
The app helps you find the closest bus or train stop to your location, shows you the schedule for routes that go by that location, and lets you look at route maps.
Chicago, Portland, and Seattle, among 
others, offer apps with real-time bus schedules where each bus is tracked with GPS systems so you know whether your bus is early, late, or right on time. Buster, the Chicago Bus Tracker costs $1.99, while Portland and Seattle’s apps are free.
Acrossair, an app development company, put out augmented reality apps last year for several large cities in which users can find the nearest transit station via their iPhones’ video function. The following is the developer’s description of the New York Nearest Subway app:
“When you load the app, holding it flat, all 33 lines of the New York Subway are displayed in colored arrows. By tilting the phone upwards, you will see the nearest stations: what direction they are in relation to your location, how many miles away they are and what lines they are on. If you continue to tilt the phone upwards, you will see stations further away, as stacked icons.”
In addition to NYC, the $1.
99 Acrossair app is available for cities including London, San Francisco, Madrid, Paris and Tokyo. Some cities also have free versions supported by Apple iAds.
See below for an example of the New York app’s interface or watch a short video on the Acrossair’s website.
The Google Maps app that comes pre-loaded on every iPhone has a pretty nifty public transportation feature as well. It allows you to pick your current location, addresses from your contacts’ informatio
n, or a custom insert and then choose directions to there or from there. You can also choose to depart ‘now’ or select a time in the future, and then are presented with the three routes numbers closest to your departure time, their expected
arrival time, and the total fare for your journey. Not bad for an app that came with the phone! Hindsight is 20/20, and I wish I’d found out about the capabilities of this app before purchasing Ride Austin.
Here is a screenshot showing the next bus I can take from my office to my apartment.
Going careless can be initially daunting but public transportation apps really helped ease the transition for me.
Sounds like you have learned a lot about the public transportation system in Austin using this app. I've been nervous to try to use the bus system but your post made me feel a bit braver!