METRO’S NEW TRIP-PLANNING APP 
You can now download T.R.I.P., a trip-planning app that’s all Metro’s own. The Write on Metro blog first mentioned the app in October 2011, reporting that a launch was expected later that winter. Of course, that delay isn’t mentioned in today’s press release announcing that the Transit Route Information and Planning app, a screenshot of which is shown here, is up and running, ready to provide schedule and route information based on the user’s location, predict “to within 3 minutes” arrivals of the next bus or train, and generate routes. And it’s free. [Write on Metro; Ride Metro]
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If this works and it is user friendly this could be a great move by METRO to get some of these drunks off of the roads. Plus of course peeps like me that have no idea the bus routes but live near at least 5 stops.
This app doesn’t seem to offer anything that Google Maps doesn’t do more quickly and easily. If it told me where the buses actually are, I’d be much more interested. Rice University’s app tracks the location of its buses around the campus. Of course, scaling whatever technology they’re using up to Metro levels probably takes more time and $$$ than they would care to spend.
I’ve used this app for about 6 months now, it is buggy, slow, and crashes ALOT. When it works it does fairly well at predicting arrival times, but it definitely needs a real time bus tracking display so you can see where your bus is actually at, I’m sure that would really bog it down though.
Google Maps has had bus info on it for years and it’s just as accurate (not accurate at all).
so this thing is another METRO piece of $hit? This is why I dont ride the bus, I dont know the routes.
When I lived in Boston, there were a few apps for tracking buses. Not surprisingly, the one that worked best was run by a private developer, not MBTA. But given the low ridership here, I doubt any intrepid young programmer is chomping at the bit to get this done.
Try Transittimes+ for iOS. It’s pretty nice, works almost flawlessly (even without GPS or a network connection, good for someone like me with an iPod and not a full phone.