CityX
From practice

When does my tram leave? Live departures nearby and the vehicles on the map

At a stop, a person wants to know one thing: wait or walk. Here is how the phone answers it, live, without a single tap.

Tomislav Krnic

Founder of the smart city project CityX · 3 min read

Someone comes out of a shop in the city centre. Tram or bus, which stop, which direction? The timetable at the stop says when the tram should come. It does not say where the tram is now.

Getting home should not need a search. The person wants to know what leaves near them, when it really leaves, and whether it is worth running.

What leaves near me

The Departures service in the CityX app opens with the answer. The tile on the home screen shows the nearest stop, how far it is on foot and the next departures from it. One tap opens the lines leaving from that stop, each with its direction and its next times, and a search for any stop or line. Every line has its own colour and number, so it is recognised before the direction is read.

The phone finds the nearest stops by itself, and where the person is stays on their phone.

The nearest stop and its next departures on the home screen. Behind the tile, the lines leaving from that stop and a search for any stop or line.
The nearest stop and its next departures on the home screen. Behind the tile, the lines leaving from that stop and a search for any stop or line.
The nearest stop and its next departures on the home screen. Behind the tile, the lines leaving from that stop and a search for any stop or line.

Every time says what kind of time it is: a countdown in minutes when the tram is on its way, the clock time when it runs to the timetable. A person always knows which one they are looking at, and can trust it.

Where is my bus right now

A tap on a line follows it. The screen says in one sentence how many stops away the bus is and when it reaches the person's stop, from which platform, and how long the walk to it takes. Below are the stops before and after, and the route on the map.

Pulled down, the same screen becomes a map of the city with the vehicles on it, moving through the streets as they go. A glance tells whether the tram is already close.

One line followed: how many stops away it is and when it arrives. The map shows the vehicles where they are now.
One line followed: how many stops away it is and when it arrives. The map shows the vehicles where they are now.
One line followed: how many stops away it is and when it arrives. The map shows the vehicles where they are now.

Every line, in the city's app

For the citizen there is no separate app to find and no account to make. Departures are simply part of the city's app, the same one they open for everything else in their city. A visitor who has never seen the city's lines finds the right tram as quickly as someone who has lived there for twenty years.

What it takes

Buses or trams that serve the city, and the city's decision to put their departures on its residents' home screens. Where the vehicles can be followed live, the map shows them moving; where they cannot, the service shows the timetable times and says so.

The service is the same in every city. The city has nothing to build or maintain, and from the first day its residents know when the next tram leaves. Getting home is a question every citizen asks every day, which is why it is a good one to answer first.