Nice one Brighton & Hove, and I am not being sarcastic! According to the Local Government Chronicle Brighton & Hove City Council claims to have the first iPhone bus app. It has launched a free real time bus time information app created by one its residents, Rick Thompson, and which updates automatically to show live bus times across the area’s network.
My own local bus service, Reading Buses, is just a couple of steps away. Most of our bus stops, even over “the river” in Caversham, have displays telling you when the next 2-3 buses are due to arrive so the data obviously exists. They just need to make that data available to someone like Rick.So how about it Reading Buses?
… and – for those without iPhones – you can txt your nearest bus stop to find out when then next bus is due.
Beware, if you’re not at the stop, you also need to know when the bus is due. Buses can make up time, so you might think you have ten minutes to get to the stop, when you actually only have five. This app is useful if you’re at a stop without real time information – otherwise, you can use the iPhone’s “Maps” app directions to get scheduled bus times. Also the “Maps” directions are more useful because you get the times of all buses from your origin to your destination – not just the route number that you ask for.
PS, the “App” linked to in the article that you link to isn’t actually an iPhone app at all. It’s a dashboard widget for your Mac. It works the same way, and looks similar, but the iPhone app can be found here http://www.journeyon.co.uk/buses.asp