(07 Jun 2023, 2:28 pm)BusLoverMum wrote Realistically, that would still require paying someone to develop it for them, though and it's most cost effective to pay someone who already has the required functionality in their portfolio. So they might give the contract to company X who have experience in taking the appropriate freely available data and making it pretty and understandable (maps, real time timetables, route planning etc) but to add in functionality like push notifications, which isn't a part of their regular portfolio would involve a lot more developer time which, of course, costs extra money that they may not recoup.

If they've got an IT team and have a budget allocated, then all of a sudden it becomes a lot more viable.
Particularly with the number off divisions that exist and the money they're paying for the websites and apps.