Getting lost—by accident, at least—should not be an option. If you're traveling to a city where you won't have your own car, public transit can be a puzzling, opaque challenge. Especially if you're trying to use buses, which are always insane.

There are dozens of local transit apps that aim to help unravel knotted bus maps around the world and get you where you're going, but three major players dominate the scene: Transit App, Citymapper, and Moovit. We compared them on routes across five different cities to see which one you should choose.

Why Not Just Use Google Maps?
Google Maps or Apple Maps is probably already on your phone, so your first question should be: why not just use your maps app?

Once more, especially if you're using buses, that live bus arrival data can really make the difference between a smooth trip and shaking your fist at the transit injustices of the world. The three apps we're looking at make it obvious. Google and Apple do not. That's super important.

One, Two, Three
For my tests, I tried several routes in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Toronto, and Barcelona, all cities with which I'm pretty familiar. Different apps offered the best routes in different cities.

For New York, Citymapper gave by far the best routes. It tells you which section of the train to get on for the easiest transfers, and even offers "rain safe" routes which are underground as much as possible. It had all of the oddball non-NYC Transit options in the New York metro area. Its bikeshare option (shown at left) clearly shows how many bikes are available and where to drop them off. It's only available in 30 cities, but I found it the clearest and best routing engine for most point-to-point routes.

Transit's interface for showing the next bus arrivals at nearby stops is bolder, one of the reasons our reviewer Jeff Wilson liked it more than Citymapper. It's also available in more cities. But Transit made mistakes on several New York city routes, missing a commuter-rail option to Queens and a trip that involved a slightly longer walk to the subway than usual. Citymapper's routes were simply better. Transit does have a better bikeshare interface, though: while Citymapper gives you bikeshare availability on your specific route, Transit lets you browse available bikeshare stations across a whole city.

Moovit (right) gave the worst itineraries in New York and lacked knowledge of the Toronto airport train, but gave the fastest and most flexible itineraries in Chicago. The app's real strength, though, is that it covers 700 cities—far more than Transit's 80-ish and Citymapper's 30. Want directions in Buffalo, Busan, Reykjavik, or Wales? Yeah, this is your transit app. I tried it with some Reykjavik bus routes and while it didn't have up-to-the-minute arrival times, it gave me solid routings and nearby stops. But unlike Google Maps, Moovit didn't list Buffalo Metro Rail, sending me on a surface route which was less efficient than one Google Maps handed me.

Which transit app you choose will end up depending on what city you go to. I'd pick Citymapper where it's available, as it has the best balance of route options and a clear next-trip display. But it's only available in 30 cities. After that I'd choose Transit App, and finally Moovit. In all cases, they'll unravel the mysteries of local buses for you, to make any trip easier.