SEPTA

I understand SEPTA has a shortage of drivers, but can’t they put a notification informing potential passengers? Today I waited 30 minutes for the Route 40 bus to Montgomery Avenue that was supposed to come at 12:30. That bus never showed up. The next Route 40 bus came st 12:50, a couple minutes past its scheduled run. I don’t mind the bus being 5 or 8 minutes late, but half an hour is a bit ridiculous. I am hoping there is a notice in advance telling your customers of any delays. I rely on SEPTA as my primary source of transportation because I am unable to drive due to a disability, so I get very frustrated when I am waiting 15 minutes to half an hour on a bus. Please try to allow your passengers to know if there will be a serious delay of more than 5 minutes it would be greatly appreciated.

Lots of good ideas here, and fantastic that real time is really real time pretty much everywhere, but so frustrating that the schedule times when you save things to Favorites are wrong!! BSL times are correct when you search the schedule, but wrong in Favorites (Ellsworth Federal to City Hall times are 3 or 4 minutes off). This makes me doubt the other schedules and doubt the app. The schedule part of the app is clunky and sometimes the searching doesn’t work, so I’m stuck with having saved my favorite routes. You can’t reorganize Favorites. So you have to think about the least important route and do that first and then work up to most important, and redo it if you add a route (because the Favorites tiles are so large that you have to scroll down to see them...I really liked the simple and easy single lines that appeared in the old app). Why doesn’t the map view show my location? It’s really hard to orient yourself when looking at a bus location on a zoomed in map.

This app is good but could use some improvements. The main improvement being mobile ticketing. This would improve using septa significantly: It will allow customers to purchase tickets anywhere at anytime It will reduce lines at ticketing kiosks and booths It will save time for the employees who sell and check tickets in trains as less people will have to purchase tickets in the train Here’s one way this could be implemented: The app would allow customers to buy tickets between two stations. Once a ticket is bought, it would be stored in a “wallet” tab. When the ticket is about to be used, it can be “activated”. An activated ticket can be used, but they will expire after 2 hours. When a ticket is activated, it’ll show up in an “Active Tickets” tab. Clicking on this tab will display the origin and destination of the ticket. It will also show the date, the current time (including seconds) and how much time is left until the ticket expires. The live time and date counter ensures passengers can not get away with screenshotting or screen recording an old ticket. This system is an adaptation of the mobile ticketing system conducted very successfully by NJ Transit for the past few years.

I’ve used the SEPTA app since it was originally released. With the new fare system, someday the sap will (can) replace the MasterCard physical (fiscal) requirement. With that being stated; the most important feature of the app is the schedule(s) correlated to departure station. Simply put, they cannot be depended upon for meaningful arrival/departure of the respective train. Most days, weekday schedules are predictably two to three minutes early. Weekends; good luck? Two trains on the MFL should have passed and not one or any delay reason presented. I am indeed writing this review waiting for the expected next train and not holding my breath for the fear of death. Not sure if the app itself or it exposes a weakness in the system. I would not rely on it for a timely arrival; it may cost you ~ RCM

The app is good and works well to check a schedule. I’ve never used the trip planner on there, so I’m not even sure it’s there. My one big annoyance is that basically every time I load the app it said it has schedule updates. They don’t take long, but I open the app several times a month - how are there always schedule updates? Not a big thing, and doesn’t really affect the app experience, even if I tell it not to update, but it’s strange and annoying.

Update: apparently the server with the train schedule data for the app is on the same grid as the actual trains because the app has no train data when there is a power outage. There should be a combination of “Next to Arrive” and “Schedule” where I can say my starting & ending points, and pick a day I want to travel, and you give me all the times. I’m basically describing Google Maps so just copy that. The app’s Schedule is close but it asks what train line I want — what do I care what line it is? You tell me what train line works best for my chosen date and place, the train line is irrelevant. I don’t care. Also the Key … why do you hide the reload functionality? I thought tapping the Key logo would get me there — nope, hidden under the pull down. Finally, this might be a bug but expanding any Trip History option reveals absolutely nothing. No extra information, just an empty blue area. Where did I ride to? No way of knowing.

So I live near the Lansdale/Doylestown rail. I decided to take the train down to 30th street to meet my brother, as the timing worked out perfectly (departed at 5:10 and was bound to arrive at 6:05). I ended up taking an Uber down that night. What happened was that I arrived at the station on time at around 5, and ended up waiting 20 minutes at the station. When I checked the board that’s already there at the station, it said the next train was at 5:19. I thought it was no big deal, but then the train never shows up 10 minutes later. I check the app, and the screen read that INSTEAD of the 5:10 train showing up, it ended up saying that the next train was at 5:40. I have never been more frustrated at the app for making me late for both dinner and for a show. Please at least have some push notification for when the train decides to just not show up.

The app for the most part is great but for the bus route 40, most of the tome the buses are no where near the time it says it should be like in the morning. There is 3 buses that are either or late and never on time. I think that the app should tell you if the bus is early or not and the late time needs to be more accurate. Then also the next time arrival needs to be improved because when a bus is running late, it often doesn’t come back on the list after its scheduled time and you can’t track it no more. The last thing that needs to be improved is when you pick the stops. The stops take a long time time to load and typing in the stops name, most of the time doesn’t work which didn’t start happening until the last few updates.

I don't understand. The home screen of the app allegedly shows when the next trolley or bus will arrive. But I don't know where they're getting these numbers from, because I can't think of a SINGLE time the app has been accurate. So what's the point of having little maps and saying my trolley arrives in 11 minutes if I'm actually going to be standing in the rain for a half hour? Or that my bus is 5 minutes late when it actually is 17 minutes late? Also, no matter how many times I click "Keep Me Logged In" I get signed out every other day. I have my Key Card linked to the account, but I can't use my phone for Tap to Pay, I still have to use the physical card. At this point it just feels like the whole app is mocking me for even wanting to believe it could be useful on ANY level.

I was reintroduced to the app called SEPTA while hunting down the disappointing fact that I cannot add my SEPTAKey card to my Apple Wallet. No underfunded agency is normally able to pull off an app that gets 3 or more stars. But I really liked the functionality of adding of my favorite lines, along with visual and functional access to my SEPTAKey card. And BOTH displayed to me when I access the app. That tells me the developer knows “This isn’t an app for SEPTA. This is an app for customers of SEPTA.” I was able to crash the app once or twice on my iPhone6s doing a swipe down, cant remember where though in the app (Rail I believe.) Why not 4 Stars? Persistent alert badge in the app. I can view the alert but the badge does not go away therefore I no longer go to alerts. That is a huge no no.

With the collapse of I-95 and having to get to the airport for a global entry interview at 4:00 on a Friday afternoon I decided to take the train. I started in Jenkintown for a trip straight to the airport. For $20 round trip fare it has been worth it. I think I will take advantage of the train from now on to the airport and to sports events. Everyone was so helpful from the Ticket Agent to the conductors. So much better than driving in traffic, having to pay to park and then drive back. I am a fan. I am originally from Georgia where rail service did not come into the suburbs so this is great.

I really wish I could just view the entire schedule for RR not just point to point. Also after this most recent update my favorites are listed how I labeled them but the schedules aren’t there. When I try to add them back nothing saves and if I click on one lines favorites it doesn’t matter if I was looking up different lines schedule what ever I just looked up shows. The whole point of adding favorites was so I didn’t have to search every single time so I could quickly find out. Again it has been a frustration since this new iteration of the app that you can’t see the entire schedule like the PDF version. Honestly I’m about to go back to carrying around paper schedules.

I don’t know what happened to this app during the pandemic, but the tracking before it was much more accurate and tracked way more upcoming buses. Now you’re lucky if it manages to “track” the upcoming one. “Track” because the given departing time is usually wrong. “On time” buses end up being late or early, “early” buses come late or on time, and you can follow the same logic with “late buses”. My issue with this is the app rarely updates to reflect the changed status. I can’t count how many times I’ve headed to a stop to catch a bus that was “on time” only to watch it drive past the stop I was headed to 3 minutes early while the app tracking says it’ll arrive in 3 minutes. Catching the bus shouldn’t be this daily frustrating game of guess.

Ever since the update to IOS 13.3, I’ve had to uninstall & reinstall the app on my iPhone XR a few times, something I haven’t had to do on my iPad mini. As I don’t drive, I have several routes I need to resave to my favorites. I wish there was a way to save this information to the cloud so it could be easily installed. There are a few features from the previous app that I wish had been incorporated in this version. I liked you could save an entire schedule choosing between weekday/weekend & now/different times of the day without entering the stop information again. I also liked being able to select nearby stops & seeing which line would arrive first without having to select the routes & stops. As there are times I have the choice of three buses, it’s time consuming to enter the route & stops 3 times. On the old app, the information was available for all 3 lines with one touch & a few scrolls. Overall, I do like the app, when I can get mine to work properly. It is convenient. This is a very convenient app

i think an addition should b added to the app. Meaning add it to the wallet setting. Reason for this is that im an Iphone user. If i place my phone by the keycard reader my wallet option appears. I think it would b more affective in a positive aspect. For those who might lose their card, outside of having to pay extra and go through relacing it last minute. This app can be utilized more and have more of an impact for its riders. It could assist tourist with less confussion. Regional Rail fares could be added as well. Sinces phones are in every hand then ths will assist with the commute

I am a frequent SEPTA user for my daily commute. The updates to the app are definitely prettier. I like that favorites are easy to access and real-time. However, as someone who lives in the city I often want to compare arrival or departure times at the different stations. It’s frustrating that the new app ONLY shows point-to-point. There is no way to view a whole timetable. So, if I want to compare when a train arrives at Jefferson and Suburban, I have to look them both up individually. There is no way to see them side by side. This was possible in the old app, and is not an improvement.

Overall very good. One problem and one suggestion: Problem: The app used to push notifications and alerts to your phone for the route or trains that you choose. The notifications have stopped even though they are turned on in the app and in phone settings. Suggestion: when checking next to arrive trains it would be helpful to have a spinning symbol that lets you know when it is refreshing. Sometimes you don’t realize you are looking at an old status because it is in the process of refreshing.

I use this app almost exclusively for the bus and L. It’s great that everything really is real time BUT the app does not show if buses are running early! This is a huge issue for me because my commute bus is used by many high school students and the times vary A LOT depending on whether school is in. The app shows “on time” even if the bus has gone by early. I know this for a fact because I have seen the bus go by early while walking to the bus stop. Please fix this. It makes it very difficult to schedule afterwork appointments. For the L, the app works pretty well. Sometimes it will run late without showing it on the app.

Although there are still some bugs (e.g. Favorites not actually saving), the new app is a HUGE step forward in terms of user interface and usability design. The new NTA interface shows only the data you need, more intelligently; station/stop searching is much easier; and favoriting (once it works) will ensure the routes I need most, rather than the most recent are at my fingertips. This app feels like it was designed actual user input and testing. Keep up the great work!

Compared to the first app, this one is ONE THOUSAND times better. The real time feature is very accurate. The change I appreciate most is that you can still see Regional Rail trains after their scheduled time if they’re late. Before if it passed the time you couldn’t see the train anymore, therefore you couldn’t see how delayed it was. Given that SEPTA is a public service, I’m very impressed with the changes they’ve made. 10/10 would recommend for any SEPTA riders

This shows you schedules, and sometimes it’ll show you when your bus is coming but not super accurately. Also it stops working when you need it the most, like if you’re trying to figure out if the 12 is ever going to come or if you should just buy a Starbucks to use their bathroom because you’re not making it home. You can add to your septa Wallet, but I don’t like to have a saved card because once you save it the app says it’s not valid. I think it reads the privacy asterisks as actual asterisks. Also, Skookul has a better real time map.

The app as well as Septa is incredibly unreliable. You’ll be waiting for your trolley or what have you, and you’ll see that your ride got cancelled with no explanation. Or, your trolley with be late with no updates on the app. Will it be 2 minutes late? 5? 15? All questions you will never get answers to, until it either shows up unexpectedly or you find another way. If you follow the schedule, you’ll miss your ride as ‘next to arrive’ is always different than the schedule, making it so hard to plan my life. Please, for the sake of my mental health, do better, as I simply can’t take it anymore. Would give 0 stars if I could.

Transit app is better and more reliable plus the people who work at Septa are honestly terrible they either drive too slow, simply take long, come too fast than normal or whenever your waiting for your septa to come it never comes or it passes right by you and usually depends if their is the same bus or trolley behind them but there is a lot where they pass you and know dang well you waiting and then they give you that stupid look knowing you needed to get on and then they keep driving away honestly just hire better people or just take down trolleys and busses cause honestly it’s not working for anyone atp.

I am using an IPhone 7 and just recently updated the Septa App and I am sorry I did. The Septa App is so difficult to navigate. It's better to use a paper bus schedule because you can see the whole day at a glance. With this new app you constantly have to look up your bus schedule to see the times for a couple of hours. If you save this route in your Favorites, it only gives you 3 times the bus is suppose to arrive. But if you want to see the next available time you have to go back to look up the route, find your stop and your destination, then you can see more times. I wouldn't want to do this in the poring rain. They should of left the App alone.

I’ve learned to read some subtleties about the application that tend to tell you things after you have gone through them enough. It would be nice if the developers applied these types of lessons to the software so the users didn’t have to guess if they need to make alternate arrangements to get home, or they can afford to work a little later sine there train will ultimately be cancelled.

I don’t use septa very often. This app is OK and essentially provides enough information to get around but it’s not outstanding or unique. As an infrequent user of septa I would appreciate more information and tips for infrequent users. For example, buying tickets on the train (some people may expect a ticket office on the platform, not always the case) automatic fare calculator for a journey including the best value (for example a day pass may make more sense that round trip ticket in some cases).

SEPTA KeyPass is a multimillion dollar failure. It is a failed program and it costs the tax payers a fortune. Thank you SEPTA for making us citizens look like cattle during rush hour in Suburban, Jefferson, and 30th Street Station. Why did you have to build those horrible metal fences? What is the point of building the electronic scanning turnstiles if the conductor has to check my Pass anyway? Why did you create a 2 step process when the 1 step process (conductor) was working perfectly fine? Show my TrailPass to the train conductor is perfectly fine, but the fact that I have to take time out of my life to stand in line so I can swipe my TrailPass just to get through the station is complete bull.

The initial day of launch for this update stated something along the lines of “we heard you and made improvements.” In my opinion, the developers were not listening and in fact made the app more difficult to use. I don’t appreciate how I have to change each schedule to a different line and different station each time, when previously the app already had that information saved. It’s also very irritating how even though I can save favorite lines in real time, but it only shows 3 upcoming times and I cannot go in to expand it. As a pr/marketing student, I’m quite appalled at the lack of consideration into this update.

The route 40 bus doesn’t even come close to maintaining a schedule. Often 2 or 3 buses in a row won’t show up. During times a bus is supposed to be running every 15 minutes, it can 45 minutes or more for a bus to show up. The app will indicate it’s on or close to schedule, but then the listed bus (and the bus icon on the map) will simply disappear. This is not an occasional occurrence, it happens at least several times a week. It’s almost a standing joke that people routinely end up sharing a cab, Uber, or Lyft, and the drivers for them are certainly much more pleasant than most of the SEPTA drivers.

Mostly, the Paoli/Thorndale line, that I ride, provides me with very convenient, on-time and eco-friendly service. But, I hope that we can return to the pre-Covid schedules, in which there were more trains —and there was never more than an hour between train times- even on weekends - and NOT the sometimes TWO HOUR intervals that exist now!

it’s so agitating the amount of bugs with showing the schedule. for my route, it doesn’t show times past 7:30 which makes it insanely inconvenient. And when i need to reverse my trip it either cannot show me the schedule or shows me times with HOURS in between them. when putting in my starting stop to destination, it won’t show the stops on the loop back which is literally so inconvenient. i sat for two hours on a bus yesterday because the schedule wouldn’t show which line was coming for my route. please for the love of all things fix this

The app never tells you when a bus is not going to show up. It will continue to say “On Time” until it becomes past the time it was due to come. Then it’s a guessing game, maybe its 10 minutes late or maybe it will never come and you will have to wait outside in the cold for an hour until the next one comes, no one knows! SEPTA needs to do better, but they dont care about passengers missing appointments or getting sick from standing in the cold, they will make their money regardless.

Buses are very seldom actually tracked. "Next to arrive" assumes some schedule which has no apparent connection to reality. Typical experience is waiting for a phantom bus. When the nonesistent bus is imagined to depart my location, the next bus is predicted for SIXTEEN HOURS from now. The "next to arrive" time lie is half-covered by the bottom icon bar. Apparently, the screen is hard-coded for a taller phone. Mine is a normal-sized iPhone SE. If you mistype a route ID in the search box, the app locks so hard that you must reboot the phone. The developer should be sentenced to thirty days of constant app use, preferably nights in a cold, rainy month.

When I try to pick a bus on transit view, why can’t I just write the bus route number (ie I have to type in the final destination of the bus but can’t like type the bus number which is dumb)? Also when I pick a particular bus and try to look for it on the map, it brings up every single bus in the network. This thing needs more quality control...

It makes no sense why users can’t purchase mobile tickets for SEPTA commuter railroad lines. This is not some new technology and SEPTA should have had this done already. All other commuter railroads have the ability to pay for mobile tickets on their apps such as NJT and MTA. SEPTA also lacks Kiosks at most stations so it is impossible to buy a Key Card. Trenton is one of the stations that SHOULD have a Kiosk especially since it is a major transfer station for NJT and Amtrak and is the terminus for one of SEPTA’s busiest lines. Please do better SEPTA, it’s not that hard

This app has been buggy, inconsistent and a pain to use for the 3+ years I’ve had it. Despite multiple revisions, it show little improvement. It is not user friendly, dumps information when you switch screens (causing you to have to re-enter the same information multiple times). The main information window is cutoff, even on an iPad Pro, and you need to click the very edge of it to drop down the information sought... Perhaps SEPTA could prioritize app development a bit more and engage some middle schoolers to recode it a more sensible way.

I got up at 7:30 to catch a 7:54 bus to the mall to go Black Friday shopping. However, the bus never came at this time. Then it said 8:08 and again it wasn’t there. And then it said 8:32, at this point my brother and I gave up and started to walk home. When we crossed the street to walk home the bus came towards us. My brother and I ran across the street to catch the bus and spilled his coffee all over his hands. The bus wasn’t followed with the schedule. Also did I mention it was 15 degrees out. Yeah, it was pretty cold. Overall I now hate this app and want to cry in my shower.

I’ve been using septa since 2012. It’s amazing to see how far they have come! The app is super useful in the sense of being able to save “favorites” that apply to my daily commute. The alerts are very useful too, especially the ones that continuously appear for accessibility notices that may affect users in wheelchairs etc. It’s important to be notified of these events.

The app offers great features, however it’s cumbersome to navigate and, most importantly, the real-time bus information is frequently inaccurate either in estimated arrival times or bus location on the map, or sometimes even both. Unfortunately, those flaws make the app unreliable to the point of defeating its purpose—the only way of knowing if a bus is coming is, well... Just getting to the bus stop and wait, the old-fashioned way. I do hope these issues are resolved. The app would be a great tool to have; especially with some bus lines running a sparse schedule, reliability is key.

Been using it for 1 week, really easy to figure out, very intuitive. I use rail a lot so nice to have schedules and arrival times right at hand. I have not experienced any problems yet. Good job, developers! November 3 ‘19 update—still the casual older user, and is easy to navigate around. Train view is especially neat. Now to only figure out how to keep my phone charged up so I can always use the App !

Sure it looks nice, but it seems like the designers focused more on the look and not the functionality. I can’t see any information on the regional rail train statuses. None of my favorites save in the next to arrive section, but even when I go and search them again, it doesn’t show any information on the train status. Thought maybe it was a bug, and submitted some feedback in the comments section of the app, but in typical SEPTA customer service fashion, probably going to do nothing with it. The old app may not have looked pretty but at least it worked!

I had the app. 'cause KyW adverted it incessantly, but never used it until I voted and there by getting called for jury duty. Not really happy about the experience but, I did get what I needed. So many features that don't seem to work as I would expect. I just wanna know what time should I get to Bridge and Pratt to make jury duty on time! Heck if it was the morning of...well, 1 star. It's only 6 hour before. Definitely much room for improvement.

The positive reviews are perplexing. Maybe they’re rewarding Septa’s diversity initiative; clearly the app designer is from a far-away planet of reptilian creatures who perceive time in 4 dimensions and use an inscrutable non-Euclidean visual language. Bravo! But I can’t figure out a bus schedule to save my life. The app is full of things that look like icons but aren’t; the different sections (buses, trains) are designed differently; it doesn’t do half the things you’d expect it to do based on what city transit apps do the world over. Please, please hire a human UX designer and start over.

Badly needs improvements throughout app, mostly for reloading payments. The same saved card I’d been using in app for over a year will no longer reload my funds, have tried several different days over the past couple of months. Even with a different card I can’t reload, so either have to go online or do it at a kiosk. Completely makes the app obsolete when the maps app already shows better updates for routes.

The SEPTA app has many useful features, but its “Next To Arrive” feature needs much work. Buses that are scheduled but never show up are consistently listed as being on schedule right up until the scheduled time passes. This happens regularly with two or three time slots being missed. These buses at the very least should show up as being “cancelled” on the “Next to Arrive” tab.

I could not find any other place to log a bug. I am on iPhone X and just installed the new schedules yesterday. Since then the Next to Arrive for Bus 45 to Center City is missing. I deleted the favorite and added it back. It lists the Favorite, there is nothing under it.

The app is adequate except sometimes it tells you a bus is coming and it’s not sometimes it tells you that a bus is going to arrive and it doesn’t. The schedule is off the buses are on tracked, which is unbelievable considering Uber contract 1 million cars a day to an exact location and septic can’t find $400,000 bus running around the city. How asinine is that. The management of SEPTA needs to get their act together. They need to obviously modernize the bus location systems and start to move SEPTA into the 21st century.

Need some serious QA. Not to mention the App Name is “SEPTA beta” and there are some problems with entering origin and destination. Map assets are not displayed correctly, it has all the features of the other apps in relation to transit. But not with the ease of use. Geolocation to see what’s around you or relative times to walk to station don’t exist. Time tables are nice, if you want to see when the train or bus might get to the station. Other apps have done a lot more here, giving better predictions so you can time your arrival better.

There are multiple occasions where they can’t even track their own buses and list them as untracked, only for the bus to pass by you. There are other occasions where the app says that the bus will arrive only to say that it’s canceled after the supposed arrival time. And recently one of my saved bus routes won’t even load, so I have to manually type in the bus route on their app to figure out what time it arrives.

Update- 5/22.....this app is the biggest piece of garbage. Times are always off compared to the website. I need to double check everything. News Flash ..... Attempt legitimate Acceptance Testing and document test scenarios. You look like the biggest bunch of idiots releasing this hunk of junk. ————————————————— Full of bugs and performance is horrible as it makes calls to get data it should cache locally. Given the poor speed and bugs, app is nearly unusable. This is a good case why not to update your apps automatically. Fire your QA team and testers.