Sheffield blog

FirstGroup is introduced to good customer service – by a third party developer

So with fares in the region going up 8% yesterday, the thought of catching the bus in the morning for your first day back at work is probably not filling you with joy – particularly if you end up waiting in the cold not knowing when the next one will arrive.

One option would be to use the YourNextBus SMS service but  like me, you have probably never bothered due to the cost of it on top of the normal text message charge.

You can also find out when your next bus is for free using the Travel South Yorkshire website, but if you have tried viewing this site on a mobile phone then you will realise how hard it is to use.

However, I will now be trying a neat new application called The Next Bus that gives the same information but using a clean interface that should offer a much improved experience for those using mobile phone devices.

You first need to find the bus stop number on the bus stop or by using the search engine/clunky map on travelsouthyorkshire.com. Once you have it, simply enter the stop number on The Next Bus and it returns the latest bus timetable information.

I tried it for the stop on Crookes Road just down from the Old Grindstone (stop number 37020400) and it worked a treat.

So if you have an internet-enabled smartphone, bookmark http://thenextbus.appspot.com/ now. And send your thanks to the person who developed it.

It looks like this application also works for services in West Yorkshire, Belfast, Cardiff, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Surrey and Kent.