Using data to figure out TRAFFIC

And providing the most accurate travel times in the industry

Citymapper
Citymapper
Published in
3 min readAug 16, 2017

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What do we hate about our beautiful cities? Traffic.

It’s hard to trust travel times when they don’t account for it.

So we went to Gobot, who as we shared last week has been studying subway disruptions. But since Gobot gets no summer vacation, it has also been studying the movement of buses.

In fact, it has been tracking all the buses, all the time.

All the buses!

Studying the past

By analyzing real historical bus movements, Gobot has been able to improve timetables and travel times.

The real world is not what they say it is

Studying the present

By analyzing the RIGHT NOW, Gobot is able to figure out the realtime traffic situation in a city.

And adjust travel times for any bus, on any segment, of any route. Every minute.

Traffic in the App

Latest versions of our iOS and Android apps will now display realtime traffic, updating every minute, visible on the map, as well as in journey details, along with updating travel times:

Traffic in the App

Launching first in London, New York City and Moscow

We decided to start with the hardest cities, because we like giving ourselves (and Gobot) a tough time.

Other cities will be added soon.. Should get easier, right? Hm.

The most accurate travel times in the industry

Back in 2016, we were the only transit app to factor in realtime arrival data to journey time estimates.

Now we’re the only one to account for realtime traffic.

As they say, it’s not how big your data is.. it’s how you use it.

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