A very happy day-after-the-long-Labor-Day-weekend to you! Today pretty much feels like a Monday (groan), and time to start the workweek for most. But if you’re a commuter, I have two nifty apps made by app and flutter developers that I’d like to share with you that might take some of the sting out of your daily grind.
WSDOT just released an app that gives users real-time information on traffic, and includes information about ferries, mountain passes, and travel times for all highways in the region. Right now, the WSDOT app is only available for iPhone and Android users; but users with Blackberry and other devices can go to http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/small/and view traffic information scaled down to fit a mobile device. I downloaded the app for my Android and what I found to be most useful was the traffic times, but I could see when the information for mountain passes and ferry schedules would come in handy.
If you take the bus, OneBusAway is an app that enables you to track any Metro bus route, to and from its destinations, and it tells you when the next bus will arrive at your stop. For instance, let’s say you take the 26 downtown. Just type in 26 under “Routes” and choose “Downtown Seattle”. The list of all the stops for the 26 will appear and once you choose your stop, it’ll tell you how many minutes away the next bus will be at that stop. You can also click through to your stop on the map and it’ll give you arrival times for all of the routes. I’ve been using the OneBus Away app on my Android for some time now and love it; but my husband has a Blackberry and he uses the mobile site, which he thinks has a lot of glitches, so your mileage may vary.
Both apps are free and can be found on iTunes and the Android Marketplace.
Happy commuting!
So here’s a question though – doesn’t the built-in map app on the iPhone use WSDOT information? Don’t know that there is need for an additional app if this is the case – at least on the iPhone.
LOVE,LOVE, LOVE OneBusAway though!
Don’t know about the iPhone app so I hope someone else can speak to that. I do know, though, that Google’s Navigation on Android uses real-time traffic information. What I thought was helpful with the WSDOT app was its traffic alert layout: the list of streets/highways with problems (I prefer the list over looking at the map’s “red” or “green” routes.)
I’m with you on OneBusAway–I can’t live without it!
Agreed Margaret – when I looked at the WSDOT app I noticed they have travel times and such as well – cool app really. I’ll have to run a comparison with the maps/traffic on the iPhone!
If you do a comparison, let us know what you think!
Maps on the iPhone does us WSDOT info; I use it and OneBusAway in tandem since you can’t plan routes with OBA.
One of the advantages OBA has over the Maps app is while Maps will show you a bus stop icon if there’s one nearby, you can’t access route/time information. OBA has a maps feature–although it doesn’t populate bus stops more than a few blocks out from your location–that gives you that info. It’s great stuff.
WSDOT & OneBusAway for Android are handy. When I had a Blackberry, I used to use a UW-developed mobile site called Busview (http://www.citygoround.org/apps/busview/).
I use OneBusAway for Android practically every time I take the bus–especially after work where I have the choice of several stops. It’s very easy to make a folder with shortcuts to the stops I use regularly. It’s sad every time I see someone go up and actually look at the schedule on the stop (if there even is one.)
I used to use the web interface on my old Palm Pre, and I never had any problems with it.