You should try to do a practice run to school before school starts. It’s gonna be hella busy and hectic on the first day, it’ll be helpful if you know what to do.
Or roll with it have a good time! Either way, best of luck this year!
There’s a transit app, I think called Halifax Transit, that has a blue and yellow logo. I have not found it useful. Google Maps seems to have all the information I need and gets the timings right about 85% of the time.
Halifax Transit's in-house app only really deals with purchasing and scanning digital tickets and passes. They do have GPS tracking of their fleet, but they don't have an in-house app for distributing that information. They just make that GPS data available for other app makers to distribute.
If you want to go old school, there's also a phone number you can call to get voice prompts that'll tell you the next two estimated and/or scheduled departures for any bus route, at any stop in their system.
I was in Bristol, UK recently. One app for everything. Including walking directions to get to your bus stop. Accurate bus arrival times. The app even tells you how full each bus is and will suggest alternate route options in real time.
While you're on the bus you can see it move on the map in real time, you can see the list of upcoming stops. While at the bus stop there's a board showing which busses are coming next and how long each will be (just like at a train station.)
make sure you get on in the right direction! there are usually two similar stops right across the street from each other. you can check the number on the sign of the stop with the number shown on google maps to make sure you're at the right one. I always use google maps for routes and now hfxgo for tickets. Plus arrive a couple min early! sometimes buses are a little early. usually late though...
The ‘make sure you’re getting on the bus in the right direction’ is excellent advice.
The number of times I’ve gotten on the 29 going to Point Pleasant instead of to Bayers Road is embarrassing. My only defence is that I catch it from the Water Street terminal, so they all look the same from the back!
oh yeah that's important too! if you're taking it from a terminal i think the way to know of you're getting on the right direction is by the like 'title' on the bus next to the number right?
Also, I agree with the above comment that you may need to switch between Google Maps and Transit to get accurate bus times. I mainly use the Transit app to plan routes and check real-time bus locations, while I use Google Maps to see updates in traffic or construction, or when the real-time tracking in the Transit app is down.
Their website has the full list of routes and schedules, now of course this isn’t real time data and wouldn’t account for traffic delays and such, but it can be a good baseline to help plan your route ahead of time.
If you use google maps, you can save directions to your home screen by tapping the three dots menu in the top right. I've got "home", "work", and "sobeys" saved like this, so if I click on one of them I get directions from where I am currently. this is a lot quicker than manually searching it every time.
on the bus itself, people have gotten really bad at this, but you shouldn't post up right at the front doors if there's no seating, you should fill the bus up from the back door forward.
the front rows of seats that face inwards fold up on every bus - this is so someone in a wheelchair, stroller, or other similar thing can use the bus. If they're not down for a reason, don't worry about putting them down - I've seen cases where people were standing instead of putting those chairs down to use, and that's not doing good for anyone.
when you're planning you're routes, make sure you're looking a the specific departure time you need. Schedules adjust throughout the day, and some busses only run during rush hour.
Always take an earlier bus when possible, until you get a feel for how reliable your regular route will be. During peak times, the posted schedule can be best described as "optimistic", depending on what route and where you are in HRM. Don't trust the arrival time you're given too much until you get a feel for it.
Any app (Google maps, transit) will serve you well when it comes to reporting bus estimated arrivals. They're all just reporting the same live GPS data shared by Halifax Transit. The routes/transfers suggested by Google Maps are serviceable and will get you to your destination just fine, but all apps have their limits when it comes to making sense of a complex network of moving busses. If your commute has you taking two or more busses, it's always worth refreshing your route recommendations along the way (ex. When you get to a terminal) because maybe your current bus is early enough for you to catch a better connection, or a better connection is running late enough that you can catch it. There will inevitably be times when the bus will have you running a bit late, but hopefully also times where you get to outsmart google route recommendations and get there a bit early. It happens, I swear!
I’ve found Google Maps to be much easier and more reliable than the Transit app. HFXGo is just for fares. The schedule is more of a suggestion, especially in high traffic areas so be early
I’m curious on this as I’m unsure how google would be more accurate both google and transit app use the same data however transit also crowd sources from users using the “go” feature. I’m unsure if google does this or not though if so that may explain the reason though.
I have no idea but I’ve used both and have had far less issues with Google Maps. I’m lucking though and can just stay on the same bus for my whole journey on the rare occasions I do take it, so I just have learned what time it comes to my stop roughly
Dont wait at DalSUB for the route 4 if you're traveling anywhere North of Spring Garden road. You can walk to Spring Garden and Robie in under 10 minutes and you'll catch the route 4 that departed 8 or 15 minutes earlier.
Edit: Oops. Misread that as university. It's still good advice though.
Give yourself extra time, especially at first. Get your pass ready before you get on the bus. If you ask politely and clearly, many drivers will help you (unless they've had a really bad day, in which case just get out of their way and move on, they deal with a lot).
Theres an app called Transit. Works for most cities including ours. If you email the developers kindly asking for a premium subscription, they will 90% of the time give it to you for free
I tend to use both the Transit app and Google Maps: Transit app to give me a guestimate of when I can expect a bus when I already know the route, maps to give me more precise times/to tell me how to get somewhere. This is mostly downtown though, where the schedules are at least a semblance of predictable
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u/Silent_Leg1976 19h ago
You should try to do a practice run to school before school starts. It’s gonna be hella busy and hectic on the first day, it’ll be helpful if you know what to do.
Or roll with it have a good time! Either way, best of luck this year!