Reading the live map

Step 1

The map opens on you. Every marker is a real vehicle sending its position, and each one points the way it is travelling. The platform is built to have a vehicle’s movement on your screen within two to eight seconds.

Step 2

Colour says what kind of vehicle it is, and the same colours are used on the markers, on the filter chips and on the fare cards. Buses are green and trains red — the two public types. Motorbikes are purple, three-wheelers yellow, Flex teal, sedans blue, mini vans pink and vans orange. Trucks are brown and mini trucks olive; those two carry packages rather than people.

Step 3

Tap a bus or a train and a panel slides up with its route, how far away it is, when it should reach you, its registration number and the driver’s name and photo.

Step 4

A grey marker is a private vehicle. Grey is the eleventh colour on the map and the one that is not a vehicle type — it says “this is a Mode B vehicle”, not “this is a particular kind of van”. Tapping one does not open the panel above; it opens the screen where you ask its owner for permission, which is chapter 5.

Step 5

Zoom out and markers that are close together gather into one cluster you can zoom back into, so a city does not become a wall of pins.

Step 6

The filter button at the top right has the three modes — public transport, private vehicles and on-demand vehicles on standby — and a chip per vehicle type carrying the same coloured icon as its marker. Turn off what you do not want and the map redraws at once.

Step 7

Two things are missing on purpose. An on-demand vehicle already carrying somebody is not on the public map. And a vehicle that stops sending its position is removed rather than left where it was last seen, so a marker is always a vehicle that is really there.

Step 8

If your connection drops, the markers dim and a banner tells you that you are looking at the last known positions until it comes back.