Taipei Bus Lines - Useful Link

[Jaboney]

Any sign of any decent maps, apps? The gov't site blows.

[TheLostSwede]

There's apparently one made by a company in Hong Kong for iPhone, but it's only in Chinese and I don't know what it's called... oh and it's not free at that...

[Jaboney]

If you mean the i-Bus app, I'd say it's about 50% of the way to a decent product, and Chinese only.

[lostinasia]

Any sign of any decent maps, apps? The gov't site blows.

There are iBus apps in both English and Chinese. I wind up using both due to pinyin issues. Neither is particularly good.

All bus apps I've used here are hindered by the need to choose "coming / going" on a route: I suppose you have to choose that somehow, but I have no idea if it's coming or going. Northbound, I can tell you.

One app called Taipei Bus is useful because you can choose a route and it'll show you a drop-pin map, overlaid on what I guess is Google's Taipei map, with little icons showing where buses currently are. This is the one I use most: I'll type the numbers in when I'm at a bus stop, and see where the little red dots could take me.

i84 has an all-Chinese interface. I haven't tried to figure it out. (Well, it's easy enough: you type in a route number. But I'm not sure what to do with that.)

Taipei Metro has MRT only. Best feature is you can look at all the maps that you see in each MRT station; also has schedules of when stations open and close.

Taipei Transit appears to be like Taipei Metro, but significantly more limited: maps of station areas only.

Playing right now with 悠遊公車通 (how on earth did that get on my iPhone?!): actually, this one looks promising. Chinese only, which is manageable for me if I know where I'm going. Map of where you are, with nearby bus stops: click on the bus stop, it gives you a list of the bus routes. Click on the bus route, it gives you a pretty good set of info: route start time, end time, list of stops and how soon until the next one arrives, with a map at the bottom like the ones you see at the bus stops. Seems much more intuitive than the other ones.

I still haven't found an app that easily lets me do want I want: figure out what buses can get me from where I am now to whatever destination I want (MRT station, 101, whatever). iBus technically does this, but last time I tried this it had me taking three buses in sequence rather than walking half a block to take just one bus.

[PapaAzucar]

Hello all, I have few questions about the Taipei buses.

1) I've been trying to figure out how to use the "General Bus Line" feature on this site:
http://www.e-bus.taipei.gov.tw/new/english/en_index_6_1.aspx
What are the "Citizen Mini Bus" and "Mini Bus" Types?
It seems that the query searches for the buses are pretty useless unless you already know the bus route to start with?

2) Are there any maps or schedule info for the free shuttle buses that go to the MRT stations?
I had asked for one from an MRT station and they only had a paper listing of the shuttle stops (in Chinese) and not a map/schedule. And what is worse, they could not even make a copy of the listing for me, or know the shuttle stop nearest the intersection that I requested.

[jephhy]

All, ordinary Google Maps does this quite excellently on the iPhone and Android phones. Just put in your destination, get directions and hit the bus route tab. In English. Done.

Agreed, I use Google maps on my iPhone all the time to find bus routes. Tap the clock icon on the top right when you pull up directions and it will take you to another screen that gives you multiple bus options.

[emitchan]

google maps on the phone is enough~~haha~~~

[4bViper]

For anyone who relies on Google maps on their iphone to find their way around TPE, DO NOT upgrade to IOS6. Apple replaced the Google Maps app with their own map app that DOES NOT give public transportation directions. Completely screwed up my day today leaving me completely lost. Tried accessing Google Maps via Safari or Chrome on my iphone but the maps won't load for some reason. Been searching and haven't found any alternatives to finding my way around town on the buses anymore.

[lostinasia]

For anyone who relies on Google maps on their iphone to find their way around TPE, DO NOT upgrade to IOS6. Apple replaced the Google Maps app with their own map app that DOES NOT give public transportation directions. Completely screwed up my day today leaving me completely lost. Tried accessing Google Maps via Safari or Chrome on my iphone but the maps won't load for some reason. Been searching and haven't found any alternatives to finding my way around town on the buses anymore.

Lots of iPhone apps give Taipei transit information. Not sure how well they work in comparison, since I didn't even know until today that Apple used to have public transportation directions on the iPhone in their normal Maps app. I've generally found the other apps good for finding out when a bus is coming, but not too useful for plotting a route.

Just search in the App Store for Taipei, Taipei Bus, Taipei Metro, and that sort of thing.

And to be honest I was relieved today because the new maps, while annoying in some ways, actually loaded (on my 3GS) without me needing to wait forever. A lot speedier than it was a week ago.

[oravavaara]

I got a 404 error!