To make it quicker for riders to find services that operate within a particular location or for a particular purpose, operators will soon be able to arrange lines and services into one or many categories.

A category can be used to represent any logical grouping of lines. For example, operators can create a category to contain just school services, or categories for lines that serve particular geographical regions, such as the local hospital or city centre. Similarly, to help non-local visitors find services for their visits categories can be made for particular types of lines, such as those that serve sports games.

There is no limit to the number of categories that can be made, and a line can appear in one or many categories. Categories can be given a name, description and image to help with user understanding and visual recognition.

Once created, categories are shown at the top of the line list across web, iOS and Android, using a new card design that makes it easier to distinguish between the different categories and lines. The order of categories is configurable, as well as the order of lines within the category. Additionally, individual lines can be added or removed from the main page to give further precedence to the popular or most frequently visited lines, appearing just under the categories.

As a further aid, if the user has favourited a line it will now be shown at the top of the main line list for quicker navigation.

Categories are managed in Passenger Cloud in a similar way to ticket categories using existing network data, and changes are reflected instantly on update.

Service categories will be available to all operators from 12 April 2023. The current line list order will continue to be used ready for categories to be added if desired.