We've all been there. You're riding the Red Line with your head buried in a good book. You're zoned out on the bus with your headphones in after a long days work. You've nodded off on the Blue Line after one too many late night beverages.
You come to, and you've missed your stop. Shit.
But there's a new app in Chicago that wants to help you avoid the gut-wrenching feeling of missing your bus or train stop by alerting you when you're about to approach your final destination.
Commuterific hit the Google Play Store this summer and works with CTA bus, train and Metra lines. Users just select which form of transportation they are on, what their final stop is, and the app sends an alert when your stop is coming up.
"In a transit town like Chicago, who hasn't fallen asleep or gotten lost in a book, at least once, and missed their stop?" said Chicagoan and co-founder David Chartier in an email to Chicago Inno. "Plus, it's always been one of those 'me too!' things when we brought it up at parties. Try it, I guarantee you'll get someone."
It's a simple app, but that's part of its appeal. Commuterific is tackling a problem almost everyone has faced, acting as a safety net for those of us who tend to space out on public transportation.
But the app has implications beyond just waking up a drunk person on the L. As outlined in a recent episode of This American Life, foreigners often have very difficult experiences riding public transportation, particularly in cities like Detroit where buses are "chronically late and confusing." Selecting your stop in advance and receiving an alert before your stop could put an end to the all-too-fequent story of non-English speakers, senior citizens, and tourists circling around and around on their bus route without ever getting off.
Commuterific currently costs $0.99 for Android users, and will be expanding soon to iPhone, the company says.
"For now we're taking a simple approach and selling Commuterific like a regular app," Chartier said. "It isn't tremendously complicated and doesn't require a subscription, and we don't want to use ads. If people find it useful, we encourage them to pay a small amount to keep good, useful, and non-invasive software coming."
Chartier added that the app will continue working even if your phone has a weak signal or if you're underground.
"When signal is weak or simply not there, we have some clever magic going on in the background to ensure Commuterific keeps pace and can nudge you for your stop," he said.
But with 4G coming to Chicago's subway system, service issues should be less of a problem for Chicago users, Chartier said.
Commuterific is planning to bring its app to New York and San Francisco next, the company says.
Images via Commuterific
