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An online transit app has taken London, and a few other cities by storm. A recent Western grad with a degree in computer science, has over 100,000 downloads for his OnTime application.
I
t lets smartphone users track buses in real time in London and many other cities, including Toronto.
Anthony Taylor, founder and creator of OnTime, describes how the idea for this app came to fruition.
“I was about a 6 or 7 minute walk from the bus stop. So by the time I checked when the bus was coming, then left my house, the time could be drastically different from when I first checked it. I started poking around the website, and realized there was a way of putting it into a mobile format that I could check while I was on the go.”
Seeing as how society and technology keep progressing, many people agree that a mobile friendly way to plan your public transit route is a necessity.
Taylor explains a feature for his app that sets it apart from other transit apps.
“It downloads the database for the city you’re in. Then, you can find the routes you use a lot and add them to your ‘favourites’. Then every time you launch the app, you can find the route you want and get the arrival time.”
Taylor has finished a new update for the app. It allows On Time to support general transit feed specification, or GTFS. With this new update, he says the app will be expanding its locations.
“My app will be able to support the exact same cities as Google Maps in a mobile format.”
Taylor said the app is in a competitive market, but has held its own against big players, like the international Transit app, which has entered the London market.
