Getting around · 08:10
Public transit app
Standing at a bus stop in a city you don't know, you open an app that tells you which bus, which stop and how many minutes. It started in Israel in 2012.
The everyday moment
The timetable on the pole says 8:05. It's 8:09. Is the bus late, or did you miss it? The app knows: it's three minutes away, and the one after that is crowded. It can also tell you to walk two streets over and catch a tram instead.
How it works
- Official timetablesMoovit collects schedules and route maps from transit operators around the world.
- Live reports from ridersRiders using the app share their location anonymously and can report delays, crowding and other problems, so the app can see where vehicles really are.
- A volunteer communitySince 2014 volunteer editors have drawn routes and timetables for cities with no official data, which is how Moovit reached places other apps don't cover.
- Every way to get thereIt plans trips across buses, trains, metros, ferries, shared bikes, scooters and ride-hailing, and tells you when to get off.
The Israeli story
Moovit was founded in Israel in 2012 by developers Nir Erez, Roy Bick and Yaron Evron, under the name Tranzmate. Their idea was to do for public transport what crowdsourcing had done for driving: let riders fill in what official data left out.
It launched worldwide by early 2013, and its volunteer editor community let it spread to cities faster than any transit company could have mapped them. It reached 100 million users in 2017 and 500 million in 2019.
In May 2020 Intel bought Moovit for $900 million. By then it had about 800 million users.
Where you meet it today
Moovit's data also powers other services: Uber and Lyft use its transit information, and cities use its analytics to plan routes. In the Netherlands it built a nationwide travel app with the transport operator Arriva.
Did you know?
In cities with no official digital transit data, Moovit's routes can come from local volunteer editors.