Travel in London in real time with Citymapper !

Lost on public transport in major cities? No problem, the Citymapper application is there to help users find their way and optimize their journeys. 

Bus, metro, bicycle, on foot and even with Uber, for each trip you can now find out the shortest or cheapest route. You can even find which carriage to get onto to save time at connections.

In London, you can now travel on green “Citymapper ” buses in the district between Blackfriars and Waterloo bridge. They are equipped with USB ports to recharge your smartphones and are fully connected to the application.

Screens in the bus show a map displaying the exact position of the bus on its route in real time.

Subsequently, you will be able to decide whether or not to get on the next Citymapper bus: the number of free seats will soon be displayed, as passengers on the bus will be counted automatically and anonymously. Furthermore an application on the driver’s tablet assists him in managing his route.

Operating in thirty cities worldwide, the London start-up formed in 2012 has based its technology on the retrieval of public data. In 2016, it raised 40 billion dollars and is estimated at over 340 million euros.

May of this year marked a turning point for the start-up: it started testing its “connected” buses and was granted an operating licence on a small line in July. Citymapper has thus become a public transport line in its own right and intends to revolutionize bus travel. Its aim: assess whether or note routesother than those normally followed by buses would better serve the city and be more efficient for users. Buses would therefore take different routes according to traffic conditions.

Only the bus stops themselves would remain the same. The stages would not change but the route would change as the day progresses. A real joy for passengers, who would not only optimize their journey but would also break their daily routine. What better way to promote the bus as a preferred means of transport and put passengers in a good mood !

L’Echangeur has pointed out that the pure players were going out of vogue. The Citymapper start-up is also going the same way: moving from a mobile app to the physical world by launching its own bus line, and doing so in the space of only 5 years! A real extension of its business, admittedly still very modest, the idea for which reportedly formed by analysing among other things the behaviour of the mobile app’s users. Which goes to show that, a useful application can find its uses and market by concentrating on consumers’ pain points, in this instance urban transport. Tomorrow, will Citymapper be the brand of the self-driving car ?