The Edinburgh Bus (& Tram) App

Those of us who do not drive will have to travel around Edinburgh, & the rest of the country, by bus. There are so many bus routes out there it would be crazy not to use them. Luckily everyone is entitled to a free bus pass when they retire, so most of us are lucky enough to have one already. But we might not know when the bus is coming, although the boards showing times at the stops are now back in action after the pandemic. If you use the bus it's very useful to have the Edinburgh bus app on your phone.

Before I go too far, when you are standing at a bus stop, you must have access to "Mobile data" to see the buses.

Most of us have a limited amount of data on our phone accounts, & the bus app doesn't use a lot, but you must have access to receive the necessary information. If you plan to use the app at home, or in a place with Free Wi-Fi, then all is well, but you would be a bit limited when you get to the bus stop in the rain, & the bus you expected fails to show up at the scheduled time. That happens a lot, as you will know, thanks to traffic, roadworks & the general public!

The image will take you to the app instalation

The App is sadly going downhill these days, but is still really useful if you go anywhere on Lothian Buses. It's 100% free & the instalation is very easy. These are the links to install it. If you are using an iPhone it will be Apple App Store, whilst a Samsung or any other "standard" phone will be Google Play Store, as Google bought Android which powers phones. If you're reading this on your mobile phone you can just open the picture above

So, now that you have the app installed, how do you use it?

Once installed it will show a small "icon", a picture on your device, possibly in the apps section so you need to get into there. It's usually similar to this picture...

When you launch the app it will check where you are, then show you a screen like this one, which was on my phone when I was at home, just up the road from Craigmillar, at Greendykes. (Open to see it larger, then close it to get back here.)

Underneath the map it will show the closest stop to you, then the second closest, & so on. The map has a blue dot which shows where you are. (It uses the aforementioned mobile data for that.) The red dots show the bus stops, with arrows telling you which direction the buses are going at that stop. You can touch the map to open it up, then use two fingers to make it bigger (zoom in) or smaller (zoom out). There is also a few options across the top, above the map. "Home", shows the map & times we were just talking about, then "Saved" shows any bus routes which you have found & saved into your app. Next along is the useful part, "Plan trip", which let's you find out what bus, or buses, will take you to wherever you want to go.

Accross the top of the App it will show a bar with "I want to go to..." written on it. That can be very useful as you can merely type your intended destination in there. That will then search for the most direct route, but give you no options for when you want to go, or enter diversions on the way. It will show you a list of possible buses, each of which you can touch to open up for more details. It also allows you to save them. Note that whenever you touch (open) the map, it currently shows a very small map with a large area of route details. I find you have to turn your phone sideways (just for a second until it swivels, then turn it back upright again) to see the map a lot larger, then touch the small "my location" symbol at the top-right of the map, which will take the map to wherever you are.

Saved just shows a list of any routes you have previously saved inside the app. Each route in that list can be opened to show the route, map & the times for the route you saved.

Plan Trip can be useful to plan your journey in advance, & allows you to save the results so you can retrieve the routes again at anytime, even without Wi-Fi as it's recorded on your device. When you open the "Plan Trip" page it will show you a page like this:

Yes, I have removed the bottom of the image, as the screen is blank below that!

The App already knows where you are (My Location), thanks to your phone's GPS <Global Positioning System>, which uses your Wi-Fi to work it out by sattellite.

The three lines below, "Leaving", "Travel modes" & "Route options" all have options, so simply touch the black word, (like now) to see these. Opening now will give you choices of "Leave Now", "Leave after" & "Arrive by". Each of those will then allow you to choose the times. You can move all these options up or down with your finger to change them. At the bottom is CANCEL or OK. Once you have the destination & options selected (& OK'd), just press "Search for routes" on the bar below. That will then open a new window with a list of possible routes for your choice. Touch each route to open a window showing the map & the stops. On many phones the resulting map view is tiny, but we covered that issue earlier, so look further up in this page.

Routes just shows a list of every bus (by number) which Edinburgh Buses run. It includes all night buses, Airport buses & even the Tram! Sadly it doesn't give times, only locations of each bus, or tram.

The 3 dots at the top-right, with "More" underneath, are merely the menu. Nothing important for you to care about, & I have already tried to "Send feedback" several times with not one response.

If you get stuck at any time, feel free to use "Contact us" at the bottom of the page, so we can try to help you out.

Don't forget your bus-pass & you're still wise to wear a face-mask. Good luck!