NextBuses 1.4

NextBuses needs to be allowed access to your location in order to find nearby stops. In iOS4, If you selected “Don’t Allow” you can re-enable location services in:

Settings > General > Location Services

I’d love to! I understand the users point of view – “Just tell me where this bus goes!”

Unfortunately it’s not that easy, this information is spread over a number of different systems, many of which I don’t currently have access to and there are tens of thousands of routes (constantly changing). What looks like a simple request quickly gets quite complex. Routes change by weekday, time, engineering works, events & public holidays. Some even run one way for half the day then change direction or start skipping and including other stops!

I am investigating ways this can be done, but can’t commit to any time frames or even if I’ll find a workable solution. Fundamentally this comes back to journey planning, the best way to remove the complexity described above is to journey plan it, it doesn’t matter where the bus goes, what matters is where *you* want to go at a particular date & time. I am working on other journey planning applications.

There can be a number of reasons as a to why a particular time is wrong.

When you open NextBuses it will automatically find your nearest 80 stops. You can also find stops by:

• Postcode
• Locality
• Rail or Underground Station
• Interactively Using the Map

Continue reading »

From the departure screen tap the depature you want to filter by. You can filter by the route number or the the destination name.

To clear the filter, just shake the iPhone or iPod.

There is a bug with users who have 12hr AM/PM time format. Please set your time format (Settings > General > Date & Time) to 24hr format. A fix is in approval for this.

UPDATE: This has been fixed in version 1.2, please update from the iTunes App Store.

Times displayed in red means the time falls into the next calendar day.

It’s a quick visual way of highlighting the gap between a service finishing, say at 19:22, but then not starting until the next day at 05:59. See the screen shot above.

PLEASE NOTE: The map below highlights the ‘real time’ information areas in green. NextBuses will give scheduled times for all other areas you see on the map.

Real Time Coverage Map

Traveline’s service obtains information from any realtime information system that is prepared to sign up to the arrangements for feeding data into NextBuses.  Generally, the clients for each system are either the local authority and/or the bus operator in each area. Many other areas are being worked on for provisioning of real time information.

London currently displays scheduled times only. TfL are working on publishing real time information, this will be available in 2011. For further information, please see the Countdown project. Hopefully this information will also be made available to Traveline’s NextBuses service.

For a complete list of areas currently supplying information for some or all services Continue reading »