Check out the “Data Linked to You”. Why does a subway app need my health and fitness data or any of my data at all?
They need to know if you had a medical condition while on the train that it was a preexisting condition to avoid any liability.
Show HN: We relaunched the Official MTA App for NYC public transit
41–50 of 77 posts
Re: Show HN: We relaunched the Official MTA App for NYC public transit
#42Great! I have been using KickMap because the MTA app used to suck. I will give this a try.
Re: Show HN: We relaunched the Official MTA App for NYC public transit
#43It shows me all the bus stops... but not the subway unless I click on a station? I can't even figure out how to have it show me subway times automatically? I rarely take the bus but I'm on the train every day. Can I just have it show me that?
Re: Show HN: We relaunched the Official MTA App for NYC public transit
#44I live and swear by Citymapper[0] for all cities that it supports. No other app I've used has been as good for public transport as Citymapper has been. I really hope one day one of these city transport organisations either buy it out, push for it, or license their tech. [0] https://citymapper.com/
For NYC specifically I've been burned many times by Citymapper. It is trying to be clever and parse the messages about service changes, but does it all wrong and in the end gives you wrong directions, leaving you stranded. Sometimes it doesn't show the alerts by MTA at all.
Now that the MTA app is so good and has achieved feature parity with Citymapper, I prefer that for 90% of the time. It doesn't have multi-modal (eg subway + citibike) and doesn't show estimates of uber/lyft prices, but those have not been very useful in my experience.
Citymapper is still ok to quickly check upcoming train or bus departures.
Re: Show HN: We relaunched the Official MTA App for NYC public transit
#45I'll never delete the Exit Strategy app, which is no longer in the App Store, for two features: 1. the "neighborhood map" for each station, showing the actual extent of the station underground, and 2. the app's main feature: diagrams showing which car to be in – and which door to use! – to exit right in front of the turnstiles at each station on each line.
Re: Show HN: We relaunched the Official MTA App for NYC public transit
#46Check out the “Data Linked to You”. Why does a subway app need my health and fitness data or any of my data at all?
The full privacy policy is here.
https://new.mta.info/privacy-policy
As a transit provider, they seem to be offering the option to report detailed location data for a “smart alerts” feature provided by subcontract to a third party. My walking speed is relevant to predictive alerting for transit, given the non-uniform distribution of US transit, so it makes sense that personalized fitness data is a thing. (I don’t approve of doing so server-side — that particular function should be device-local.) I also assume, unverified as I’m not in their city, that their transit improvement option may also use it. (See below.)
They explicitly do not use your data for marketing. It’s a clearly written policy with full declarations in most respects. However —
App authors, please update your privacy policy to explicitly describe how and which fitness data is collected and used? I’m having to make inferences and that’s understandable but will need to be corrected.
Re: Show HN: We relaunched the Official MTA App for NYC public transit
#47I'll never delete the Exit Strategy app, which is no longer in the App Store, for two features: 1. the "neighborhood map" for each station, showing the actual extent of the station underground, and 2. the app's main feature: diagrams showing which car to be in – and which door to use! – to exit right in front of the turnstiles at each station on each line.
If you mean the one linked below, it seems very much on the iOS App Store (US).
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/exit-strategy-nyc-subway-map/i...
Re: Show HN: We relaunched the Official MTA App for NYC public transit
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Citymapper was recently acquired by Via https://citymapper.com/news/2582/citymapper-joins-via
And Via is like if Uber wanted to dismantle public transport. Knowing how they are using the data from citymapper, I've since uninstalled it.
...no?
Via is primarily SaaS where their customers are cities themselves to help digitize and optimize their public transit networks. You might be thinking of: at one point in time and in some places, Via operated ride shares, but that's not their main business and they discontinued much of that during the pandemic.
The citymapper acquisition notes really fit Via's strategy of being able to help cities unify and optimize transit infrastructure.
Re: Show HN: We relaunched the Official MTA App for NYC public transit
#49The worst thing in mapping software is Google Maps public transport. Ten minute walk to the subway/tube then a fourteen minute ride? Every other app, like citymapper or apple maps, tell you this takes 24 minutes. Google Maps simply omits the walk time and incorrectly tells you the journey takes 14 minutes - making you late.
> Google Maps simply omits the walk time and incorrectly tells you the journey takes 14 minutes - making you late. No it doesn't, it calculates the walk time. How about we take 10 seconds to Google this? https://maps.app.goo.gl/1JcSMN3qrNuFpNSL8 Has walking times
OK they’ve fixed this. They hadn’t about a year ago and a decade before that.
> How about we take 10 seconds to Google this?
How about you learn the HN guidelines?
Re: Show HN: We relaunched the Official MTA App for NYC public transit
#50The worst thing in mapping software is Google Maps public transport. Ten minute walk to the subway/tube then a fourteen minute ride? Every other app, like citymapper or apple maps, tell you this takes 24 minutes. Google Maps simply omits the walk time and incorrectly tells you the journey takes 14 minutes - making you late.
This isn’t true. I just looked for directions to somewhere in my city that involves an estimated 3 minute walk to the tram stop and a 34 minute ride and it correctly reported 37 minute journey. I already knew this though because it’s walking speed estimates are a little slow for me, so I often arrive earlier than I need to.
Yes I re-checked myself and it looks like they’ve finally fixed it after a decade.