Editor’s Note: The author Paul Harrington is the developer of the YourStop bus transport app which now covers the Network West Midlands area.
A new website providing real time bus information has been launched in the West Midlands region. YourStop is compact, easy to use and displays equally well on both mobiles and desktops. The app’s main focus is to allow users find next arrivals at bus stops quickly and easily. Live predictions are given when available and buses can be tracked in real time. Recently viewed stops are automatically saved for easy reuse. Favorite stops can also be bookmarked.
In YourStop, users can find stops using three distinct methods. There is a detailed stop search facility and a capability to browse all of 30,000 stops on a map. Perhaps most useful though, is the Locate the Nearest Stops button which a user sees when they first enter the site. This marks all stop within half a mile of the user on a map. If there are less than 20, the next closest are shown.
The integration of the West Midlands region into YourStop has been aided by the 2017 Bus Services Act and the formation of combined authorities and associated transport delivery committees. Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) focused on providing quality real time data in open standards. One of these is GTFS and this opened the door for integration into YourStop says owner Paul Harrington. The feed is impressively large and presented new challenges but the inclusion of 89 separate bus agencies made it an attractive proposition.
A useful YourStop feature is an All Destinations drop down box which appears when viewing departures for a stop. This lists all stops in alphabetical order that can be reached from this stop without changing bus. When a destination is selected, departures which do not stop at this destination are filtered out. All remaining departures will stop at the destination and the time at the destination shown. Another nice touch is a Travel Later mode where future schedules can be browsed.
There are app versions of YourStop available for Windows, Amazon and Android users. Apple users should look for an “Add to Home Page” option when using it on their phones. This puts an icon on the screen. When launched with this, the look and feel is similar to native mobile applications. YourStop will be a welcome addition to West Midlands commuters providing some unique features not currently available.
It can be found at https://yourstop.info
Facebook users can also follow and ‘like’ the YourStop page for further information and support.
Editor’s comment: Please feel free to try out the app and leave any comments and feedback below!
