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Back in 2012, when Call Me Maybe was the earworm du jour and Phil Kessel was still scarfing down tater tots before faceoffs, we launched Transit app in Toronto.

Over the years we’ve doubled-down on making Transit the best app for navigating Canada’s largest city.

Today, we’ve been given the unbeleafable privilege to announce a new year-long pilot with Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), focused on improving their digital customer experience. Together, we’ll work to make your Toronto commutes even more reliable and — dare we say it? — delightful.

By ridership, TTC is Canada’s largest public transit system and the third-largest in North America. Half a million people in the GTA use Transit, including over 300,000 TTC customers. Together, they open Transit a collective 22.7 million times each month.

What does a our digital customer experience pilot™ look like?

• Free Transit Royale for all TTC riders. Befitting the land of King and Queen streets, we’ve added TTC branding and all of our app’s premium bells and whistles — including first-time TTC riders.
• AI-powered detour information. TTC customers will continue seeing wayward buses and streetcars in Transit and beyond.
• Customer feedback through Rate-My-Ride. TTC is listening closer to its riders with over a half-million Rate-My-Ride responses winging their way from Transit to TTC each month.
• Web trip planner. Our web trip planner is the browser-based counterpart to our app, now appearing on the TTC website.
• Upping the ante on TTC open data: TTC and Transit’s teams are collabin’ to improve  TTC’s open data real-time service information and wayfinding. That way, the digital customer experience wins are felt across all TTC and third-party apps and websites that display TTC service info.

Demystified detours

Launched in 2023, Transit’s automatic detour detection identifies when a bus or streetcar is making stops off its usual route. TTC was the first public transit agency in Ontario to launch automated detour detection in 2024, helping riders dodge surprise redirections on buses and streetcars.

TTC will continue to use Transit to flag 700+ detours on bus and streetcar routes each month, which will make life better for the 39,000+ monthly TTC customers who use Transit to learn about nearby detours before showing up at a defunct stop.

Behind the scenes, we’ll keep TTC informed with a bird’s eye view of active detours, while TTC will continue to integrate Transit’s AI-detected detour information into its open real-time data, making it available to all apps.

Riders speak, TTC listens

Rate-My-Ride is our platform’s rider surveying feature, which flings little questions to TTC customers during their trips.

TTC riders are eager to seize the mic, and send through over 500,000 Rate-My-Ride responses to Transit every month. We forward all that data to our friends at TTC Research & Analytics, which helps them gauge rider satisfaction with precision on every line and prioritize service improvements.

Moreover — on top of our usual questions about all the essentials like trip satisfaction, stop signage, and onboard safety — TTC can now shape their own questions and turn the customer feedback volume up to 11.

The Royale treatment

The year-long pilot hits GO on all the best bits of Transit’s premium version, giving Torontonian travellers access to unlimited departure schedules, additional trip planning options, and a Pantone 485-soaked TTC-themed app icon and branding.

Web trip planner

The web trip planner puts all the trip-planning power of the Transit app into a browser-friendly format. Check directions and navigate TTC services from their desktop, while customer service staff can check what riders are seeing in-app  — no downloads or phones required.

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We’ve got a big year ahead, Toronto. Buckle up!