An Apple App for the Big Apple Subway

Ted Mann, writing for the Wall Street Journal, reports on the new New York Subway app:

America’s largest subway system launched a smartphone application that will reveal train-arrival times on seven of the city’s 24 lines—a leap forward for a service that has lagged behind its peers both at home and abroad in adopting new technologies.

[…]

The app breakthrough, long awaited by many of the city’s straphangers, will allow at least some riders to plan their commute by the minute for the first time in the system’s 108-year history.

Good move but the subway system apparently is showing its age based on the cost and timing of this app. The system only works on lines that have had expensive upgrades to the signal systems which enables centralized computers to collect the data on every train. Regardless of how they got here, this is the future of transit - user friendly, service oriented mobility.