Use Google Maps To Check Public Transportation Status

Plenty of us rely on public transportation, but there are times when your local transit system is anything but reliable.

Those of us who use it to commute are used to being packed into buses and trains carriages, but sometimes there are just too many passengers and you can’t board — or worse, your bus zooms past you because it can’t accommodate any more people. Other times, delays because of traffic accidents, construction or mechanical issues slow your commute to a near-crawl.

Fortunately, Google Maps can now give us all advanced warning on public transportation crowding and delays in the same way it can guess wait times at restaurants. Real-time delay updates and crowdedness ratings just recently rolled out in the Google Maps app for Android and iOS. The feature supports 200 major cities across the world, with more coming.

Here’s where to find the new crowd and delay information in Google Maps:

1. Open the Google Maps app
2. Tap “commute” to see a list of nearby routes. Alternately, you can type in your destination, then tap “directions” and select “public transportation”.
3. Tap the route you wish to use.
4. Any delays or detours will be displayed in the directions next to each bus or train line involved in your trip. You will also see approximate crowdedness listed — more stick figures in the icon means more crowdedness. You can also tap the “i” info icon next to the icon to get a more detailed explanation.

Just a quick note here that some cities/routes may not have all the new information. This could either be due to Google’s servers not being updated yet, or because that particular data isn’t available in your region. Keep checking back in the app, and hopefully, that information will be added soon.