Passenger Bus, Rail and Motorcoach Industry News

New York City, Washington, D.C. and Salt Lake City users can now access live departure times on rail lines.

The new version allows you to highlight a single mode of transportation (subway, bus, or train), temporarily hiding the other transit information, thus making it easier to map your destination.

Riders can click on any of the 468 stations labeled on Google Maps to find planned service changes expected to affect that station at the time. Alerts will also be included in the step-by-step transit directions.

Move allows third-party developers plugging Google’s Maps product into their web and mobile applications to provide their users with public transit routes, color-coded transit layers, and schedules.

The beta version for estimated time of arrival/real-time tracking, launched for consumer testing, lets riders subscribe to get real time status updates and alerts delivered to their mobile devices for their preferred routes and transit stops.

In addition to added bus and subway options, users will also be able to select from various route options, such as the recommended route, one with fewer transfers, or one that involves less walking.

Passengers will be able to designate an origin and destination in the Omaha area and receive detailed bus directions including route maps, bus stop locations, departure times, and trip duration.

Transit data available for Boston, Portland, San Diego and San Francisco in the U.S., and Madrid and Turin in Europe.

Google Transit on Google Maps is a public transportation planning tool that combines the latest BC Transit schedule and route information with the power of Google Maps.

Transit planning information is also accessible by cellular phones, such as iPhone, Blackberry, WindowsMobile, S60, and other Java enabled phones.