BART (Official‪)‬ 4+

BART Real Time Terrible

BART Real Time is terrible both on the app and the stations, especially at Berryessa. The times on the app and the times on video monitors and the arrival displays have different information on each all at the same time.
Example: I want to go from Berryessa to Hayward. The app says Daly City train not leaving for 40 minutes while there is a Daly City train in the station with doors closed. A Richmond train is coming into station saying 2 minutes to leave. I get on the train to Richmond, doors close and BART app says “leaving” (from Berryessa). 2 minutes later the Daly City train opens doors, lets passengers on and immediately leaves. I couldn’t get off the Richmond train to run over to Daly City train because the doors are closed. Richmond train doesn’t leave for another 15 minutes even though BART app says “leaving” the whole time. Meanwhile the Daly City train has left even though real time app says a Daly City train isn’t leaving for 40 minutes.
The real time seems to work a little better from Warm Springs north.
This needs to be fixed or a new app should be created.

Developer Response ,

End of line stations are prone to complications with real time because trains lay over as they await for the next run. We have engineers working to improve this.

Love Pay for Parking Feature!

This app has simplified my whole life. The online paying for parking is so easy to use. Every single day I had to pay $3 for parking & the machine ONLY accepts cash and if you don’t have exactly $3 they give you ONLY coins AND the machine doesn’t accept coins so basically the whole week you’re just walking around with a ton of quarters accumulating in your pocket (one time it gave me all dimes & 1 nickel and I almost snapped, also that’s def not the right amount of change but what am I gonna do, ask for 5 cents back?) and it is so awful. I am gen z and hate cash & hate going to the bank to get cash for the sole reason of parking at BART. My only complaint is that I thought it was offered for every station so when I went to another station I didn’t pay. Luckily I did not get a ticket but beware!!

Tries to be multiple features, doesn’t implement well for any

This app appears to be an attempt at merging several different apps that address different issues: Schedule, Live ETA of train arrivals, hazards reporting, and advisories/outages. It’s a good initiative but it experiences issues on all of those attempts.
The scheduler and live ETA don’t work well after midnight but BART has trains up to an hour past midnight, so it is rough there. It also only provides ETA down to minutes while other apps like BARTPro provide updates down to seconds and are also hooked to the BART API for accuracy.
Advisory and outages are okay, it’s about 80% accurate for reporting escalator outages, but not perfect.
Hazards reporting is the worst, I have received no confirmation or replies each time I’ve reporting incidents from finding people taking residence in elevators to exposed injectable needles lying on seats. At least you would get a confirmation and often a live response back from a person when reporting via BART Watch app, so I’m not sure if my reports are going through.
All in all, it’s a good initiative but the app is mostly not usable compared to other more reliable apps at this time for the different features.

Developer Response ,

Thank you for this feedback.
Escalator outages are posted once an employee enters it into our system as being out of service. We are currently testing escalator and elevator remote monitoring and reporting technology to improve the work flow.
You are correct that the report a biohazard feature (which is an exclusive feature to the official BART app) does not offer real time replies or notifications at this time. The report is sent directly into our case creation system for handling. We are currently working to include push notifications within the app and will explore this option to confirm receipt of biohazard reports.
BART Watch allows you text with police dispatch.