See the buses near you

Updated

BusBus shows MTA buses on a map as they move. The Live Map tab opens on where you are, so the buses around you are already on screen.

Find yourself on the map

  • Tap Find Me, the location button at the bottom right of the map, to move back to where you are. Tapping the Live Map tab while you're on it does the same.

    Android: tapping the Live Map tab only finds you once BusBus can use your location. Until then, tap Find Me.

  • If the map opens at Columbus Circle instead, BusBus can't use your location. See fix your location on the map.

BusBus loads the buses around the middle of the map and keeps them up to date on its own. Drag the map to see buses somewhere else.

Tap a bus

Tap a bus to open its card. The card shows:

  • Where the bus is going, like To Sheepshead Bay.
  • The bus number and how recent its last report is, like Bus 9423 · Updated 12 sec ago. Once a report is more than 2 minutes old, this changes to Last seen and the time.
  • Whether the bus is Moving, Not moving or On layover.
  • The stop it's heading to next.

The buttons on the card open more:

  • Route draws the whole route with its stops and buses. See find a stop near you.
  • Bus Info shows the kind of bus and, when the bus reports it, how full it is.
  • Trip lists the bus's next stops and how far away each one is.

Tapping a bus also follows it as it moves. See follow a bus on the map.

Zoom in and out

What a bus looks like depends on how far you're zoomed in:

  • Zoomed out: each bus is a small dot. Where many buses crowd together, they're grouped into a circle with a number. Tap the circle to zoom in to those buses.
  • In between: each bus is a rounded square with its line name and an arrow pointing the way it's going.
  • Zoomed in close: each bus is drawn from above, with its bus number on the roof and where it's going on a label underneath.

To learn what the arrows and markings mean, see tell local, Limited and SBS buses apart.