Montreal-based Transit launched a real-time trip-sharing feature on September 1 that lets you share a live public transit ride with friends and family instead of sending another “where are you?” text.
Transit said on Tuesday that 26.98% of its Canadian users start their commute between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m., and 39.39% of those users are students, so back-to-school is stacking new riders onto a crush that already has people watching the clock. Share Trip sits on the same GO mode we covered when Transit rolled out crowdsourced tracking.
It is the latest add-on after London Transit riders got free Transit Royale in August and TTC customers were handed Royale in June, so the app is trying to be more than a departure board this fall.
Start a GO trip, tap Share Trip, and Transit builds a unique link you can send to friends or family, then the people on the other end see the route, the rider’s location, and the ETA live, and they do not need an app login because the page opens in a browser if Transit is not installed. If the rider misses a bus or takes a different path to the same destination, the map and arrival time update for whoever is following along.
Sharing is 100% voluntary for riders 13 and older and only happens with the rider’s consent, and it shuts off automatically when they reach the destination or end the GO trip. A parent following a teenager is one use case, because the feature tracks the user’s public transit location and arrival times rather than a school bus. Transit covers real-time info in more than 1,000 cities across 40 countries and is free on iOS and Android, with the Share Trip page laying out the rest of the walkthrough.
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love transit app! its great!