(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.

Totally agree. It's also not too long ago when operators were trying to develop individual apps, which really resulted in them all being a bit hit and miss. I think Arriva still go down this route now with theirs, and look at all the problems they seem to have.

A lot of operators (including GNE) now use an app developed by Passenger. The look and feel of the app is pretty much consistent across the different operators that use it, and I'd say it's one of the best bus operator apps I've used, even if it's not perfect. But my point is that having an app that has a big market share of bus operators, should allow them the resources to continue to improve it and bring out new features.