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Apple Expands Maps Transit Directions to Seattle, Washington

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Apple today updated its Maps app to add Transit information in Seattle, allowing iOS users living in the city to incorporate public transportation options like the Link Light Rail, Monorail, buses, and more into Maps when seeking directions.

Transit directions within Maps became available with the launch of iOS 9, and while Apple offered directions in a limited number of cities to begin with, the availability of Transit directions has since expanded to encompass 16 cities around the world along with dozens of cities in China.

seattletransitdirections.jpg

Apple's iOS 9 Feature Availability page has not yet been updated with the addition of Seattle, but the information should be added in the near future. Including Seattle, Transit directions are now available in Austin, Texas; Baltimore, Maryland; Berlin, Germany; Boston, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; London, England; Los Angeles, California; Mexico City, Mexico; Montreal and Toronto, Canada; New York City, New York; Philadelphia Pennsylvania; San Francisco, California, Sydney Australia; and Washington, DC.

Though also unlisted on the Feature Availability page, Transit directions were also added for Portland, Oregon last Monday.

Article Link: Apple Expands Maps Transit Directions to Seattle, Washington
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2016/04/18/apple-maps-transit-directions-seattle/
1 city per news = 2 000 000 news on MacRumors about Transit updates.


2 000 000, the approx. number of cities in the world
 
Washington is the capital of United States right?
And this city get transit info after such a long waiting.
 
This actually would have been much more useful before Link Light Rail started running to the University of Washington last month. Before that, I had to rely on busses and time schedules... now I know a train will be there every 6-10 minutes, depending on the time of day. I just walk down there and hop on!

I will have to test this out sometime, though. Last time I tried Google's transit directions - a year or two ago - it didn't handle Seattle's downtown transit tunnel very well. Google tried to steer me towards a stop that the bus in question (a 73, in all likelihood) didn't use except late at night. :D
 
This is going to take forever if they keep adding cities this slow... How small is the maps team for gods sake? And is there just one team for the whole planet???
 
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IGI2 said:
1 city per news = 2 000 000 news on MacRumors about Transit updates.


2 000 000, the approx. number of cities in the world
Click to expand...
150 comments per post. They'll be rolling in the dough.

But seriously, once Apple starts rolling out more than one city a week, MacRumors will group several cities into one post. Just as they do with Flyover cities.
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SBlue1 said:
This is going to take forever if they keep adding cities this slow... How small is the maps team for gods sake? And is there just one team for the whole planet???
Click to expand...
They have recently gone from one city every few months to one city a week. That suggests they are getting better at integrating the data. It won't progress fast enough to satisfy everyone, but it appears they are accelerating.
 
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Given that Google aggregate their data from various transit authorities & companies why don't Apple follow suit?

It's all well and good if you're in London but what about Newcastle and their Metro system? Liverpool and their transit system etc?
 
Shirasaki said:
Washington is the capital of United States right?
And this city get transit info after such a long waiting.
Click to expand...

No, Seattle is in Washington State in the Pacific Northwest. The city of Washington DC is on the east coast and is the Capital of the US. It is a bit confusing.
 
Now Seattle just needs to expand their light rail. A perfect route would be downtown Seattle to Redmond.
 
HangmanSwingset said:
Seems like all bus systems in the Seattle area are integrated too. Which is good, since it's a massive jumbled mess around here.
Click to expand...


If you use the Orca NFC card, you can transfer between King County Metro Busses, Seattle Department of Transit Street Cars, and Sound Transit busses and rail at no extra cost for 90 minutes. If you pay in cash, ST offers no transfers, and KC paper transfers are only valid on KC busses. The Monorail is unfortunately privately owned and not part of any fare integration, being set up as a tourist thing, $2.50 for a one way ticket, though monthly passes are available for the few that use it to commute. Hopefully this will change in the near future, because it does run frequently and is certainly the fastest way possible to get between downtown and Seattle Center/Queen Anne neighborhood.
[doublepost=1461025093][/doublepost]This is super exciting! AM is a lot more aesthetically pleasing than GMaps and I think the UI is a little better, so it's great to finally have an alternative.
Westside guy said:
This actually would have been much more useful before Link Light Rail started running to the University of Washington last month. Before that, I had to rely on busses and time schedules... now I know a train will be there every 6-10 minutes, depending on the time of day. I just walk down there and hop on!

I will have to test this out sometime, though. Last time I tried Google's transit directions - a year or two ago - it didn't handle Seattle's downtown transit tunnel very well. Google tried to steer me towards a stop that the bus in question (a 73, in all likelihood) didn't use except late at night. :D
Click to expand...

GMaps and Apple Maps are almost certainly using the same resources from King County/OneBusAway for bus routes, schedules, stops and realtime arrival. In my experience, there are certainly issues, but not enough to possibly make me go back to learning and researching timetables. 99% good. Apple Maps is prettier. It'll probably be as buggy.
 
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iGeek2014 said:
Given that Google aggregate their data from various transit authorities & companies why don't Apple follow suit?
Click to expand...
It's not quite that simple, this coming from a former engineer with a transit agency in the US and now a civil engineering consultant for multiple transit agencies. Part of the feature set is getting the agency to buy into and port into a dataset, for most of my past/present clients it's "gawd, another data set to map or tie into...". When I worked for Tri-Met, in the Portland OR USA region, it was the first transit agency that published their data. Then, Teleatlas, NAVTEQ, Keyhole (now Google Earth and Maps), and Apple all opted to do their own thing - of course, with different parsed data sets. Grrrrr.

Not wanting to bore you to tears with this, this is what Google's pushing: https://maps.google.com/landing/transit/index.html - and you'll see their Transit Partner opt-in bit in the upper right of that web page. If all of these mapping whizzes could just use the same parsed data set or appropriate subsets, we'd all be up and (not) running for the bus/train! Cheers!
[doublepost=1461025940][/doublepost]I needed to get a ride in Federal Way today, found transit options on my iPad. Shock!

As I found over the weekend in OR State, "Seattle" isn't the only option here. I can get routed from Olympia to Everett, and I'm sure there's a bit more to this web...

I'm also confusededededed. Why is MR shoehorning this into the iOS forums? The options are also showing up on my Mac as well.
 
Boosf said:
[doublepost=1461011336][/doublepost].....and other than ONE light rail running from UW to SeaTac, it's all crowded buses.
Click to expand...
You should see I-5 Southbound on Sunday afternoon at Shoreline.

"Hey Bill, I have an idea that will make everyone happy! Let's make the major N-S artery into the largest city in the Northwest US go from 5 lanes to 3 at Shoreline! Then, we'll make the lanes 'Exit Only' on the left, put a bridge in there, build a Convention Center over the same freeway, and then have the major E-W Artery merge right afterward! For a bonus, let's make the reversible express lanes haywire compared to traffic!"

"That's great, Joe, how about this? Let's make the alternative route to the East* go from 3 lanes to 2, except if you have a pay pass, so we have congestion, even on the nights and weekends! As a bonus, we'll have 2 of these lanes in the most congested area blocked off from non-payers!"

"Can we make the once free bridge pay only?"

"YES!!!"

"We need to talk to the people in Tacoma and see how they have made that I-5 Construction by the Tacoma Dome last forever. By the time they're done with the one lane expansion, they'll need another! BRILLIANT!"

*They have since made the 405 free on nights and weekends, but it was fun to drive from Everett to Renton in rush hour traffic on a Saturday evening.
[doublepost=1461034841][/doublepost]
btrach144 said:
Now Seattle just needs to expand their light rail. A perfect route would be downtown Renton to Everett.
Click to expand...
FIFY ;)
 
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