Best Transit Directions App in San Diego

We tested 7 apps to find the best one for navigating San Diego’s public transit.

Navigating by bus or trolley in San Diego is easier with an app guiding your way. While you need to use the Pronto App to pay your fare, it’s not the best for directing you through your journey. We knew there had to be a better transit navigation app out there, so we decided to find the best one for San Diego. We wanted an app to have seamless trip planning, real-time and up-to-date arrival and detour information, good transfer routing, and an easy to use experience.

We tested 7 apps to find the best one for negotiating San Diego’s trolley and bus lines: Transit App, Apple Maps, Google Maps, Moovit, OneBusAway, Lyft, and Pronto.

We’re crowning Transit App the champion.

1. Transit App 👑

  • Best real-time tracking of trolley and busses

  • Alerts when to leave for the stop, transfer, and disembark

  • User-friendly trip planning

In our testing, Transit App had the most accurate real-time arrival time estimation, so you can know when to starting walking to your bus or trolley stop. If you start a trip with the “Go” button in the app you’ll get a lock screen widget that guides you throughout your trip and alerts you when you need to transfer or disembark.

Its trip planning is easy to use, gives you multiple options including multi-modal (e.g. bike + bus), and has convenient “arrive by” and “leave at” features. Click on a bus line to explore it and see real-time locations and departure times for each bus. One missing feature we wish it had is the ability to see all nearby buses and lines mapped at once (a feature that only Lyft has).

Transit also has a unique social feature where you can share how crowded your bus/trolley is, compete to be a route’s top rider, and automatically provide better vehicle location tracking to other Transit users. The more people using the app, the better it is for everyone. Unfortunately, you can’t pay your fare with Transit, for that you’ll need to use the Pronto app.

Download here: Transit

2. Apple / Google Maps

  • Apple is better than Google for public transit

  • These apps are already on your phone

The best thing about these apps is that they’re probably already on your phone. Apple has clearly put effort into making public transit directions work well in Apple Maps. Apple’s transit data seems to be more up to date, its transit routing works better, and it even shows some bus lines on the map. If you’re going to use one of the apps already on your phone (assuming you have an iPhone), Apple Maps is the better choice.

3. Lyft

  • See all nearby buses and bus routes on the map

It’s surprising that Lyft has public transit options in its app at all. While it’s not very good for navigating, one cool feature worth mentioning is that you can see all nearby bus routes and buses displayed on the map at once. Most apps only show this for the trolley. Check it out to explore bus routes near your house or work.

Pronto App

  • Use Pronto to pay for Transit, not to navigate transit

  • Terrible (or broken) for directions and trip planning

Pronto is the app to use to pay your transit fare in San Diego, but don’t try to use Pronto app for directions. On iPhone, trip planning has been completely broken for months with the app crashing if you try to plan a route. But even when it did work, it was a minefield of usability problems that will likely leave you more confused than when you started.

RideSD is a grassroots organization advocating for better transit in San Diego. Signup for our newsletter below to hear about our events and opportunities to help advocate.