Our new Enhanced Vehicle Information has been rolling out over the last few weeks to Passenger websites with Live Buses enabled. This is the first of several releases bringing the same functionality to mobile apps. 

Like the website update, the changes have been designed to help users understand more about the bus that’s on its way, by providing more information than has previously been available to them. This includes payment options accepted on the bus and links to the Covid-19 guidance you’ve published online.

As normal, we have chosen to release in small phases to help us manage backwards compatibility, where users can be on different versions of the apps. This also ensures that users get access to this important information as quickly as possible. 

The new vehicle information has launched on the Explore screen, which is the default view for users. In later releases we will be adding this information to other areas of the app where it is possible to track a vehicle, making sure that the information is appropriate to the context.

On the web we have highlighted that the vehicle takes ‘App tickets’ and provided a link to the best place to buy them, which varies for different operators depending on their configuration of suppliers. This information and link to mobile ticketing will be released in a separate update, where the link is different again as the user is already in the mobile ticketing app.  

Importantly in the current climate, each vehicle displays an indication of whether the vehicle is ‘Quiet’, ‘Moderate’ or ‘Busy’. This vehicle occupancy data is currently powered by two key sources. Crowdsourced data from users and, in the case of operators with Ticketer ETMs, data collected by the driver – where you are using this ETM feature.

Where no data is available, we will show “Unknown” to users, who are then encouraged to help others through our crowdsourcing service. 

Thank you for your ongoing support and feedback. If you have any questions at all, please get in touch.