Released on 1st February 2014, the UK Transport app is the latest in a long line of journey planner apps to hit the App Store.
Using timetable data from Traveline, it helps you to find the quickest route to your destination, regardless of the operator. This means it seamlessly searches across different transport options including trains, buses, coaches, ferries and the London Tube, before giving you a breakdown of your total journey from A to B. It also includes walking routes between the different services so you don’t get lost mid-way!
It is a nifty little app and no doubt will come in useful if you regularly make trips across major UK cities or are forever having to use different modes of transports. However, it does have one drawback, which is that it uses timetable data rather than live (realtime) data.
Hopefully this will be resolved in future app updates as our public transport system never seems to run to time and it could cause major headaches if you’ve got a lot of connections to deal with as part of your journey. Not ideal and it does take away from the premise of using just one app to plan and manage your journey.
There are workarounds, as you can use the UK Transport app to query the timetable information if you are delayed in order to look for the next service running, so in the short term it shouldn’t be a major put-off.
How does it stack up against other journey planner apps?
As most other journey planners mainly focus on trains, tubes or buses, the UK Transport app does offer a fresh approach and I’m looking forward to testing it more in the coming weeks. It has a beautiful interface and is really intuitive to use, complete with clear route instructions and times, coupled with map views of each part of the journey.
Overall, if you are only looking for some help to get around London or other large UK cities, you may be better off with one of the free apps provided by regional rail companies, or with the main National Rail iPhone app. As these apps tend to use live data, you’re less likely to be in the dark about any delays.
If you’re fed up of working across different apps and want a simple solution, you’ll wonder how you ever coped without the UK Transport app.
The UK Transport app is now available on the UK App Store for £5.99
