
CityMapper – Point to Point City Directions - uptown
https://citymapper.com/
======
bbx
CityMapper in London offers a great experience on mobile. It works better than
Google Maps for several reasons:

    
    
      - one-click "Get me home"
      - point-to-point directions include better hybrid instructions 
      - it displays bus waiting times in real-time
      - displays your location *within* the bus route (between 2 stops for example)
      - walking times are more accurate
    

For some reason, on the website, if I click on "Use my current location", it
locates me at my home. But right now, I'm at work. Really weird... Would it
mean that my previous location was somehow stored in Safari on my laptop?

~~~
fragmede

      - one-click "Get me home"
    

You can setup a Directions widget on your Android homescreen for a shortcut to
'Get me home'. Works well, but is a tucked away feature that I've never seen
anyone else use.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Thank you! I did not know this; just setup widget on my home screen to get me
home!

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benburton
I think there are a lot of usability problems with the start and end fields. I
entered "57th and Broadway" into the start and saw the following results:

    
    
      * Broadway & 57th Street, Woodside, NY
        Broadway & 57th Street, Woodside, NY
      * Broadway & 57th Street, West New...
        Broadway & 57th Street, West New York,...
      * West 57th Street & Broadway, New...
        West 57th Street & Broadway, New York,...
    

I quickly clicked the first link, assuming it would be Manhattan (since the
map was centered over Manhattan). I got directions from Queens.

I went back and tried again clicking the second result. This time I got
directions from Union City, NJ.

I didn't get the right start point until the 3rd try, and that was only after
trial and error. You incur a huge cognitive load to examine each of those
three options and select the correct one, when other services I use all the
time (Google Maps, Hopstop, etc.) seem to get it right on the first try.

You might say this is an unfair critique, because New York has a lot of
streets with similar names... but it IS the biggest city in the US, and the
application IS called CityMapper.

~~~
koenigdavidmj
There are four different Broadways in New York (the Manhattan/Bronx one, and
one apiece for the three remaining boroughs). Two of them (the Manhattan one,
obviously, and the Queens one) intersect with some sort of 57th Street.

As a user, you probably want the Manhattan one unless you specify a borough.
But as a developer, it's really hacky-feeling to hardcode "this one should
immediately be preferred for no apparent technical reason".

~~~
benburton
The technical reason could be that the viewport was centered around Manhattan
:)

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denizozger
I use CityMapper in London an I'm a huge fan of it. Some of the features I
love the most are:

\- Foursquare results when searching for a destination

\- Saving a trip plan to access it without Internet connection (handy when
changing lines underground)

\- Get me home and Get me work shortcut buttons on homepage

\- Underground line statuses

\- Rain safe travel options

\- Taxi prices for the chosen travel

\- Very user friendly design

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jgrahamc
I've used CityMapper on my phone a lot in London and Paris and can vouch for
it. I particularly liked in Paris that it would recommend fastest routes that
I would never have considered.

For example I was somewhere in Paris and I needed to get to Opéra and
CityMapper pointed out that by walking to the end of the street there was a
bus that would take me straight there. I would likely not have considered the
bus as an option because of unfamiliarity with the system.

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simonsquiff
CityMapper has the most hilarious release notes I've ever read. I love getting
an app updated - not because of the (awesome) new stuff they keep adding - but
because I'm guaranteed a cracking read. It's interesting how writing in such a
human voice builds positivity towards the app - I do think it's part of why I
rate it so highly. It makes you want for a feature where you can find where
the dev team are to have a pint with them...

~~~
fredtisk
hahaha with an endorsement like that, you know I just had to go and look them
up. I found this [0] in which they portray themselves not as "a GPS
alternative" (ugh, boring) but as out to "save lost humans everywhere!" That's
_me_! I'm often lost in cities!

It also has a very cute picture of one of my personal favorite internet memes
;) I'd be willing to give this a shot...

[0] [http://blog.citymapper.com/post/82979788709/citymapper-
annou...](http://blog.citymapper.com/post/82979788709/citymapper-announce-
fundraise-to-save-lost-humans)

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bostik
Interesting anecdote from the trenches.

The app was originally called BusMapper, and it was used to suggest working
bus routes in London. Eventually it grew into handling all kinds of mass
transit. (Due to processing power limitations, the first versions skipped
every second bus stop to keep the graph traversal time manageable.)

The person who wrote the original version is working in my team.

~~~
coderholic
I wrote much of the original BusMapper website and all of the iOS app. The
only other person involved (other than Azmat, the CityMapper founder) was
Mattias, who did all of the hard core routing algorithms - is he the guy on
your team?

You can still get the BusMapper app at
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/busmapper/id431558152?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/busmapper/id431558152?mt=8),
but CityMapper has come a long way since then!

~~~
andy_boot
Hello. Nope its me. I built the android version.

~~~
coderholic
Oh hey Andy - sorry, I forgot about the android version! Hope you're well! :)

~~~
andy_boot
No worries Ben. I imagine you wrote more code than I did for BusMapper anyway.

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untog
Interested to know what powers this. OpenTripPlanner[1] certainly provides all
the features required but needs a revamped front-end. Like this, basically.

[1] [http://www.opentripplanner.org/](http://www.opentripplanner.org/)

~~~
dblacc
I believe they power themselves using open sourced data like that from
Transport For London. I think they also plug into some other apis for things
like cycling routes.

~~~
untog
That would be a wasted effort then, given that OpenTripPlanner does the same.
But maybe there are performance restrictions or similar.

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Sodman
I use this in London on a daily basis to check bus times, as my commute can be
faster by either bus or tube, depending on the bus wait times. Absolutely
brilliant app, love the real time Borris bike availability and tube delay push
notifications.

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rm999
This is much more usable than google maps for manhattan (on my iphone), I'm
very impressed! Google maps is a great app, but it's clunky for the specific
use-cases of city-dwellers. I really like how you don't have to specify your
mode of transportation a priori, because in cities there are usually five
different ways to get somewhere with different tradeoffs. Instead, the app
tells you the standard options (subway, bus, bike, walking), how long it will
take, and how many calories you'll burn.

~~~
wongkh
What I appreciate is that it then further breaks down the bike option into
"bike hire" and "your own". It integrates well with the citibike system to
show you where you might be able to pick-up and leave a bike.

~~~
akgerber
I wish there were an option for subway + bikeshare— sometimes the fastest way
to get somewhere is to take a train then grab a bike for the last mile.

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lazerwalker
I love the design of their web app, but it's just as unusable to me as their
iOS app is. Sometimes typing in an address works fine, but other times (such
as my home address), it bafflingly shows me a list of possible addresses that
_aren 't_ the thing I just typed.

I understand as a programmer why that is (using Foursquare's venue API instead
of doing any geocoding of their own) but it still makes it completely
unusable, which I find sad since it has so many other great features and tiny
polish details.

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dalek2point3
Question for CityMapper -- have you guys considered OpenStreetMap? What is
currently wrong with OpenStreetMap that you would rather use Google? Would
love to get some feedback back to the OSM community.

~~~
zerebubuth
They do, at least in part. "We use OpenStreetMap for our walking routes." [1]
I don't know why they don't use it for display maps (or why they don't
attribute OSM at all).

[1]
[http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/02/start/cityma...](http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/02/start/citymapper)

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peterwwillis
Does nobody else find Foursquare maps API really, really sucks at finding
things? I put in "Baltimore" and the first 20 results are outside maryland. I
put "Baltimore, MD and there's a couple completely random odd things in
maryland, as well as a ton of out of state listings. Uber uses the Foursquare
API, and their location also totally sucks for finding simple things like an
address. Maybe there's some way to search "the right way", but it's totally
unintuitive to me.

~~~
CWIZO
Yep. It's the reason why I stopped using FS all together ...

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redindian75
is this right? it showed me i can bike across water?

screenshot: [http://i.imgur.com/OaJUSax.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/OaJUSax.jpg)

actual path:
[https://citymapper.com/nyc/superrouter?start=40.771961874462...](https://citymapper.com/nyc/superrouter?start=40.771961874462036,-73.95910263061523&saddr=1320%203rd%20Ave&end=40.77755171188342,-74.0233039855957&eaddr=324%2043rd%20St)

~~~
uptown
Absolutely: [http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/10/03/man-pedals-across-
hud...](http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/10/03/man-pedals-across-hudson-river-
on-bike/)

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CWIZO
I love CityMapper, I use it all the time. I just wish they fixed DLR times, as
they are often completely off.

One other feature I'd like to see is to prefer a bit of a walk to change tube
lines, instead of redirecting me to a bus or taking a much longer route. I
happen to live in a location where it always does that when I try to get to
the jubilee line :/

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corbinpage
Feature Request: Scenic Route

Sometimes I'm exploring a new area and don't necessarily want the fast route,
but the path that takes me by interesting places. I'm not familiar with a
service that does this though Field Trip and Foursquare give you interesting
places around you as you walk.

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akgerber
I am confused by the suggestion that I "Babyrock to station", with this GIF:
[https://citymapper.com/static/img/journey_planner/jokes/baby...](https://citymapper.com/static/img/journey_planner/jokes/baby.gif)

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scoot
The mobile app is excellent, but I do wish it would read locations from my
calendar & contacts to save cutting and pasting. For the calendar it could
remind me when to leave to get there on time...

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gbrits
Interested in knowing how they manage to include up to date timetables for
public transport in Paris.

Last time I checked (somewhere last year for something similar I wanted to do
myself) these weren't available.

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ajanuary
It slightly baffles me there isn't an option to leave at a time in the future.
I often need to find out what time I will arrive somewhere when I leave work
to send people a time to meetup.

~~~
andy_boot
there is. At least in the mobile app.

~~~
ajanuary
I can't find it on the site or ios app, only the option to leave now and
arrive at a particular time.

~~~
andy_boot
Oh you are right I misread your original comment. You can set an arrival time
for any point in the future but not a 'departure time'.

The founder Azmat is very keen on keeping the interface simple so this is
probably a design decision to reduce complexity.

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ultimoo
Great concept! Voted for San Francisco to be the next city. You should have
paths that go over hills (for a robust walk), and paths that go around hills
(for a flatter stroll) too! :-)

~~~
jmzbond
Ha and you should name those routes "For the fit" and "For the sedentary"

KIDDING!

If you did this it would be meaningfully different from Google Maps for me,
the other benefits that others have said so far don't really resonate with me
personally

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vdm
Best public transit app for London; I use it every day.

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daddykotex
Looks very neat. I had some problem with the back button but other than that
good job. I'm on Ubuntu 14.04 and I use Chrome 34.

~~~
daddykotex
And I voted for Montréal :D

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leobakerhytch
Is that… Jesus, on a pogo stick?

[http://i.imgur.com/f8EMwTP.png](http://i.imgur.com/f8EMwTP.png)

~~~
denizozger
And a zombie:
[http://cl.ly/image/3q2y1G1M312K](http://cl.ly/image/3q2y1G1M312K)

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ethnt
I love Citymapper when I'm in NYC. Hands down the best mapping app.

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brianbreslin
Can you provide some example routes so I can see how this would work?

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denizozger
[https://citymapper.com/london/superrouter?start=51.505499,-0...](https://citymapper.com/london/superrouter?start=51.505499,-0.086922&saddr=London%20Bridge&end=51.509064,-0.196538&eaddr=Notting%20Hill%20Gate)

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sealless
Broke the back button. Never will return to a site that does this.

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cmelbye
Back button is broken, oof. Beautiful app though.

