NYCBigApps Winner Brings Free Bus App to QueensRoadify, a free iPhone app that combines transit schedules and official alerts with live reports from riders, recently launched an update that covers every bus line in Queens. No small feat, considering how few resources, app or otherwise, that are available to Queens bus riders.
Until Roadify, there was no way for Queens straphangers to find bus schedules anywhere other than the bus stop, let alone find service advisories and rider reports. With the new update, however, riders can use their cell phones to get the best idea about when the bus is coming and if there’s problem, find out why from other riders.
With this novel approach, Roadify recently took Grand Prize in the city’s NYC BigApps Competition and was later named the MTA’s “App of the Week” in the Authority’s new initiative to highlight top local transit apps. Roadify actually worked with the MTA to fix a missing dataset that housed the majority of Queens lines, and are happy to now have buses in all five boroughs and Long Island covered in their free service, which also covers NYC subways, traffic, and parking.
“We received a bunch of emails and tweets from our users asking ‘What about the Queens buses?’,” said Roadify designer Brian Bush. “Now we have a positive answer for them."
With summer temps peaking in the 100s in recent weeks, Queens bus riders are happy to save a few minutes waiting at the stop any way they can. Now, thanks to your cell phone, that may actually be possible.
Download Roadify’s free iPhone app in iTunes or at app.net/Roadify. The service is also usable for free via Text Message, by texting ROAD to 95495 (standard data rates apply).
For more information on this story, please contact Dylan Goelz, Roadify’s Head of Marketing and Design, at dylan@roadify.com or (904)673-6866.
Now if only the buses showed up when they were supposed to...
5 comments:
A bus schedule? Are you for real? Unless this is a free app it's nothing but a money maker for the MTA and Roadify, because there's no such thing as a schedule.
how amusing. The bus stop half a block from me doesn't have a schedule for one of the two buses that stop there. Hasn't for the entire time I've lived here: 8 years. The housing on the pole for the other bus? It broke and fell down to the bottom of the pole a year or two ago. It still sits there.
I wonder if this app is available on Android, Blackberry or Windows.
The old trip planner was better, now they switched to Google and I use hopstop instead.
Hey folks,
Wanted to answer some of your questions.
To the first post, Roadify is totally free and always will be. We're fixing the "schedule" by allowing riders to report how late the bus is and by including real-time bus info as it comes online, like the B63 in BK.
To the second post, we're currently usable via iPhone and via Text Message. We're working on Android, but in the meantime check out the free Text service. Text ROAD to 95495 to start. Standard data rates apply.
To #3, HopStop is great for trip planning! We're aiming to be the go-to app for when you already know where you're headed (home, school, work) and want to know the schedule and status asap.
Send me any questions if you like: dylan@roadify.com
Thanks for reading,
Dylan
I'm sorry but you can post the bus schedule all over the city, but it really doesn't matter. The schedule is a pipe dream that the MTA came up with, at least in Queens. Now if there was an app to make the buses run on time, that would be useful.
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