Transitvs
Citymapper
Citymapper: If you want a more design-forward multi-city planner with similar real-time and micromobility coverage
Transit
Public transit trip planning and real-time arrivals for buses, trains and shared bikes and scooters
As of 1 September 2026, Transit is free to use. A city transit app covering real-time arrivals, trip planning and micromobility across hundreds of metro areas. Softwr lists it under Maps. Transit is made by Transit App Inc., available on iOS, Android, Web.
Overview
What Transit does
Transit is a mobile app for navigating public transit, showing real-time vehicle positions, arrival predictions, service alerts and multi-modal trip planning that folds in bike share and scooter share operators alongside buses and trains. It is built on GTFS and GTFS-realtime feeds published by transit agencies, plus proprietary crowd-sourced positioning where agencies do not publish real-time data themselves. The distinguishing fact is who actually pays for it. The rider-facing app carries no subscription and no advertising; Transit generates revenue from its B2G side, selling agencies and cities a paid analytics and rider communication platform (Transit Data and related agency tools) built on the same trip data the free app collects, and in some cities it takes a transaction fee on fare payments made inside the app. That means the product depends on agency cooperation for its core data, and coverage quality varies enormously by city depending on whether the local transit authority publishes a real-time feed at all. Buyers here are individual riders, and the trade-off is coverage rather than cost: the app is free everywhere it operates, but in cities without a real-time GTFS feed it falls back to static schedules, and in smaller markets it may not be maintained by the agency at all, so arrival predictions become guesswork dressed up as data.
What people use it for
- A commuter in a city with a well-maintained GTFS-realtime feed wanting live bus and train arrivals
- A rider comparing a transit trip against a bike share or scooter leg for the last mile
- A visitor needing offline-capable static schedules in a city with patchy data coverage
- Someone wanting to buy a transit fare inside the same app used to plan the trip, in supported cities
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Transit.
- Coverage depends entirely on whether the local transit agency publishes a real-time feed, so quality swings sharply between well-funded metro systems and smaller regional operators.
- The company earns its revenue by selling agencies a paid analytics product built from rider trip data, which means the free app functions partly as a data-collection layer for a business customer, not only as a public service.
- In-app fare payment is only available in a limited set of cities, so the headline feature is not something most riders can actually use.
- Static schedule fallback in low-data cities is only as accurate as the agency last published, and service changes can go unreflected for weeks.
- The app has no offline routing without a cached area, so it is not reliable for navigation in areas with poor mobile signal.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Transit
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
Pricing
What Transit costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Rider app
Free
- Real-time arrivals and trip planning
- No ads shown to riders
- In-app fare purchase where supported
- No account required for basic use
Capabilities
Features
Real-time arrivals
Live vehicle positions and predicted arrival times sourced from agency GTFS-realtime feeds
Multi-modal trip planning
Routes combining bus, rail, bike share and scooter share in one itinerary
Service alerts
Agency-issued disruption and delay notices pushed to affected routes
In-app fare payment
Ticket and fare purchase inside the app in supported cities
Offline schedules
Static timetable fallback where no real-time feed exists
GO transit and micromobility layers
Live availability for docked and dockless bike and scooter operators
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Does Transit cost anything to use?
No. The rider app is free with no subscription and no ads; the company earns money separately by selling agencies a paid data and communication platform.
Does it work in every city?
No. Coverage depends on whether the local transit agency publishes a GTFS or GTFS-realtime feed; some smaller markets have static schedules only.
Can I buy a bus or train ticket in the app?
Only in cities where the local agency has integrated fare payment; elsewhere you still need the agency app or a physical ticket.
Keep looking
Where to go from Transit
- Transit alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Transit pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Transit badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Maps softwareThe full category
- Best Maps softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Maps software for
Compare Transit with
- Citymapper
- Ride with GPS
- Google Maps
- HERE WeGo
- ArcGIS Survey123
- Felt
- MapQuest
- TomTom Developer Portal
- Waze
- Apple Maps
- CARTO
- Gaia GPS
- GraphHopper
- GRASS GIS
- IndoorAtlas
- HERE WeGo
- Esri ArcGIS
- ArcGIS Survey123
Other Maps software
Cycling route planning and navigation with a genuinely usable free tier and two paid tiers above it
Free plan11 researched notesConsumer navigation and local search app, distinct from the paid Google Maps Platform developer API
Free plan9 researched notesFree navigation app with offline maps, public transit, bike routing, and car
5 researched notesForm-centric field data collection that writes straight into an ArcGIS organisation
13 researched notesCollaborative browser mapping with a free non-commercial tier and annual-only paid contracts
Free plan12 researched notesFree driving directions, live traffic updates, and road conditions for trip planning and navigation
12 researched notesTomTom provides mapping and traffic APIs, SDKs, and data products for developers
11 researched notesCommunity-driven GPS navigation app that uses real-time traffic data from its users
Free plan10 researched notesOpen-source routing engine for road networks, providing fast route calculations, turn-by-turn navigation
14 researched notesLong-running open source geospatial analysis engine for raster, vector and terrain processing
Open source12 researched notesIndoor positioning and navigation solutions using the Earth's magnetic field, WiFi, and Bluetooth beacons
Free, then €59/mo12 researched notesFree navigation app with offline maps, public transit, bike routing, and car
5 researched notesForm-centric field data collection that writes straight into an ArcGIS organisation
13 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Transit, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Transit
Transit alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Transit pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Transit
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Transit badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
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