OC Transpo’s Mobile Site Now Available [Ottawa]

OC Tranpo’s new and improved mobile site is now available for viewing on your iPhone. OC Transpo is the bus transit system for the city of Ottawa and surrounding area.

The mobile site is a replication of their regular site in a mobile form with features like:

  • Travel Planner
  • Live Updates
  • News
  • Stop Schedules
  • Transitway Stations
  • Route Schedules
  • Fares
  • Contact Us

To try it out, I used the travel planer to figure out a route from Carleton University to the Scotiabank Place. It did as I expected by returning a detailed route information, number of transfers, duration and cost but a few things were lacking. There is no option for the site to find where you are, using location services on your mobile phone. The menus are fields are kind of small for a mobile experience. There are lots of lists to scroll through, such as stop times and station names, with no option to speed up the process by narrowing your search.

Also, I don’t think OC Transpo is using GPS information from their buses to determine more accurate stop times unlike the pilot program in Edmonton. When I tried to view the stop schedules on the mobile site I was faced with an error and a whole bunch of gibberish so that wasn’t very helpful.

There are other options for those catching the bus in Ottawa such as Google Maps or ‘Where is my bus?’. However, OC Transpo recently changed a few of their routes and timetables and I assume that they would have the most recent information. I’m not so sure about the other services, especially since Google Maps and OC Transpo will suggest two different routes for me to get from A to B.

Don’t get me wrong, this mobile site is a lot better than the previous one but I don’t see myself using it very often. I can see how the travel planner is nice to have easily accesible on your phone, but would you use the other features on the go? Are there other options for getting around Ottawa?

[OC Transpo Mobile Site] - It’s a free service, check it out!

 

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