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Citymapper is one of the most useful transport apps around.
Google Maps might be more comprehensive, covering much, much more of the world, but lots of people find Citymapper – where it is available, at least – far easier to use.
The only issue is that's it's currently only available in a handful of major cities – in the UK, that's London, Manchester and Birmingham. Hopefully it will roll out to more and more places in the near future.
It's built for people who walk, cycle and use public transport. So, as well as directing you, it can help you save money and think more about the environment too.
One of its best features is GO, an incredibly insightful tool that can completely change the way you approach your commute.
We’ve rounded up a selection of the best Citymapper tips and tricks. Click on the gallery below to start browsing.
Citymapper tips and tricksShow all 9 1 /9Citymapper tips and tricks Citymapper tips and tricks Customise your home screen You can change the order in which the various cards on the Citymapper home screen appear, to make it easier to view the information and access the features that are most important to you. Just tap the upwards-pointing arrow in the top-right corner of the card you want to move.
Citymapper tips and tricks Get useful journey stats When you choose walking directions, Citymapper shows you how many calories you’ll burn and the distance you’ll cover. However, you can get a lot more information by tapping the Go button on any trip you take, whether you’re walking, cycling or catching public transport. As well as adding up the calories you’ve burned, the app will show you how many trees and how much money you’ve saved by not driving.
Citymapper tips and tricks Race yourself The best thing about GO is that it can help you speed up your daily commute. If you use it regularly for all of the different routes you can take to work, for instance, it will compare your travel times and tell you which is best. You can also view your entire GO trip history to see if your journey times have changed as a result of using GO.
Citymapper tips and tricks Share your live progress GO journeys also let you share your real-time location with your friends, so they know you’re not lying when you say you’re stuck in traffic. On a GO journey, tap the Share ETA button and choose how you share it. Better still, it works for multiple people, so if you’re planning a group event you can see everyone’s live progress on the same map.
Citymapper tips and tricks Compare your commute Once you start using GO on a regular basis, the feature will learn more about your habits and compare you to other Citymapper users in your city. One of the more interesting of these is a comparison of your daily commute with other people’s.
Citymapper tips and tricks See your trip history As GO journeys are saved on the app, you have the option to go back and view all the trips you've taken. You can also delete any GO trips, if you so wish.
Citymapper tips and tricks Save journeys for offline You can save data and ensure you don’t get lost when you know there’ll be a point during your journey when you’ll have no internet access, by planning ahead. Once you’ve plotted out your trip, tap the star icon in the top-right corner of the screen. The app will save the journey so you can follow the directions even when you’re offline. Better still, you can save multiple trips this way. Saved trips will appear on the Citymapper home screen, inside the Trips card.
Citymapper tips and tricks Optimise your notifications Citymapper automatically delivers push notifications for your morning commute and evening commute, to inform you of any disruption you might encounter. You can turn these off or customise them by tapping the pencil icon at the top of the Commute card. After that, tap the Notification: ON option and choose notification times that fit around your work schedule.
Citymapper tips and tricks Go 3D You can access a visually richer view of your journey than normal by tapping the 3D option in the top-right corner of the screen on a GO journey. It gives you a better perspective of your surroundings than the standard bird’s eye view, and you can also rotate the map.
We also have a roundup of Google Maps tips here .
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