App Driven Buses - Are Responsive and On-Demand buses the Future of Transport?

Transport app Citymapper has moved into real life vehicles, with a new bus “SmartBus” App, with an aim to “redesign the bus”, both in terms of how one looks and how it operates.

 As part of a two-day trial, the bus drove down a set circular route. The test marks an ongoing project that will see the company attempt to realise responsive buses.

“We feel buses haven’t evolved enough,” wrote Citymapper in its post. “They still roam around cities utilising old systems of operations and inefficient technology.”

“If we’re going to solve urgent problems of congestion and infrastructure, we need buses to improve, to operate smarter. In the era of smartphones we can have responsive buses that react to real-time needs.”

The chosen bus route was picked by Citymapper based on data analysis provided by evaluating commuter demand and existing connections. Navigational Data from the bus is sent back to Citymapper’s developers over the course of the two days, and the software is developed and improved in real time, enabling changes to the route.

The Smartbus was launched with the full co-operation of Transport for London (TfL), which Citymapper describes as “the most forward-thinking public transport agency in the world”.