Case studies / Citymapper
Finding the destination with Twitter
Quick facts:
- Live in 12 cities, just launched in Milan and Rome
- Available on iOS/Android/Web
- Best Overall Mobile App at Mobile Apps World Congress 2014
- Apple’s Apps of the Year 2013
- Winner of NYC’s MTA App Challenge
Challenge
Citymapper is a transit app available on iOS and Android that combines open data and great design to help make cities easier to navigate and explore. Citymapper set out to reinvent the urban transit experience by providing features like trip planning, realtime departure data, weather info, alerts and basically everything a commuter needs to navigate their city. The app hosts transit data from many of the world’s most traveled cities, including London, New York, Paris, San Francisco and Berlin just to name a few.
While the app was able to provide its users comprehensive data about their most traveled routes, the team found that Twitter was the source that offered the freshest and most complete transportation alerts in cities like San Francisco. Most cities have interesting Twitter feeds from transit agencies, and the team felt they should be integrated into the transit app for user knowledge and convenience. Citymapper wanted to integrate the power of Twitter’s realtime updates and shared public information, while also ensuring that its users experienced a stable, crash-free app experience.
Solution
Citymapper integrated Twitter Kit into the latest version of their mobile app to provide users with the valuable Tweet rendering within the user experience.
Thanks to the Twitter Kit, the app was able to feature live Tweet syndication from trusted transit agencies via Twitter timeines on the “Lines & Status” page of most cities covered by the app. This was quickly possible with a few simple lines of code.
Citymapper is all about empowering users with real-time information, and Twitter is the best source of real-time. Twitter Kit allows us to smoothly display transit Twitter feeds within the mobile experience, exactly where users need them.
”Results
With Twitter Kit, Citymapper users are more informed about their commutes and rides with realtime information. Integrating Tweets into the Lines & Status page of Citymapper allows users to receive a more complete picture of what's happening within their transit systems. Showing various timelines (e.g. @SFBARTalert and @sfmta_muni in San Francisco) gives users up-to-date details about any delays or alerts that might impact their commute.
Best of all, Twitter Kit provided the team with the functionality to add properly-rendered Tweets to the app in only a few hours development time. This has allowed Citymapper to deliver an award-winning app experience to commuters around the world.
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