Apple Maps Real-Time Transit Information Now Available in Tokyo

This is good news, to be sure--Apple Maps transit directions in Tokyo were good, but certainly have room for improvement. And nearly a quarter of the country's population lives in Tokyo, so if you're going to start somewhere to roll it out, Tokyo is it.

...but I really wish they'd improve transit schedules past the trains in moderately more rural areas. The lack of bus schedules really hamstrings the usefulness for anywhere not directly next to a train line.

Example: Google Maps will tell me exactly which local bus (or busses) in Yamanashi to ride to get from the southern part of the valley to the central part. There are several local and regional bus lines that serve that area, and it's entirely practical to get around on them.

But if I do the same search in Apple Maps, it only has trains and the highway bus to Tokyo, so I get a worse-than-useless suggestion to ride a long-haul bus for two hours into another prefecture, transfer to a different long-haul bus, and ride that all the way back. Just saying there's no route would be better, or suggest I take the train then walk for an hour, which is more realistic, cheaper, and three times as fast.

Yes, Yamanashi is relatively rural, but it's still got a population of 800K, gets a decent amount of tourist traffic thanks to Mt. Fuji, and there aren't that many local busses you'd have to add the schedules of to make Apple Maps useful. If Google can manage, surely Apple could spare however many hours of labor it would take to get better bus route coverage.

This is good news, to be sure--Apple Maps transit directions in Tokyo were good, but certainly have room for improvement. And nearly a quarter of the country's population lives in Tokyo, so if you're going to start somewhere to roll it out, Tokyo is it.

...but I really wish they'd improve transit schedules past the trains in moderately more rural areas. The lack of bus schedules really hamstrings the usefulness for anywhere not directly next to a train line.

Example: Google Maps will tell me exactly which local bus (or busses) in Yamanashi to ride to get from the southern part of the valley to the central part. There are several local and regional bus lines that serve that area, and it's entirely practical to get around on them.

But if I do the same search in Apple Maps, it only has trains and the highway bus to Tokyo, so I get a worse-than-useless suggestion to ride a long-haul bus for two hours into another prefecture, transfer to a different long-haul bus, and ride that all the way back. Just saying there's no route would be better, or suggest I take the train then walk for an hour, which is more realistic, cheaper, and three times as fast.

Yes, Yamanashi is relatively rural, but it's still got a population of 800K, gets a decent amount of tourist traffic thanks to Mt. Fuji, and there aren't that many local busses you'd have to add the schedules of to make Apple Maps useful. If Google can manage, surely Apple could spare however many hours of labor it would take to get better bus route coverage.

Yamanashi public transit and modern technology? Blame Fuji Kyuko for that one. It was only a few years ago that they finally put in some Suica terminals at the stations (many, many, many years after basically all of Japan was already using Suica/Pasmo/etc).

I can’t remember exactly when, but I can probably track down old Line messages where I said something like “Guys! You’ll never believe it! They actually put in a Suica terminal!!! We’re like a real city now!” 😂

Good to know. Waiting for it to be available in other regions also.