Department of Transportation Services

HONOLULU – The City and County of Honolulu’s Department of Transportation Services (DTS) today announced the official retirement of TheBus location app, DaBus App 2, marking the end of more than a decade of providing real-time bus arrival information to riders across Oʻahu.

First launched in 2012 following a community hackathon led by the City’s Department of Information Technology (DIT), the original DaBus App was Honolulu’s first customized smartphone application to deliver real-time TheBus arrival information. The app quickly became a popular tool for riders, offering bus stop locations, routes, and destination information. In 2016, DaBus App 2 was introduced, featuring enhanced features such as bookmarking, nearby stop discovery, and multilingual support in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese.

As technology evolved, DTS partnered with the Transit App to deliver a more advanced, integrated experience for riders of TheBus and Skyline. The transition reflects the City’s continued investment in modern, multi-modal transportation options.

“The retirement of DaBus 2 marks the end of an era for Oʻahu transit riders, but it paves the way for a more unified digital multimodal experience between TheBus, Skyline, and Biki. We thank the original developers of DaBus and DaBus 2, and recognize the impact of our first tools, which brought real-time bus arrivals to our smartphones,” said DTS Director of Transit Jon Nouchi.

With the Transit app, riders can:

• Track TheBus and Skyline trains in real time with crowdsourced locations
• Plan end-to-end trips with seamless transfers between TheBus, Skyline, Biki, and even rideshare services
• Crowdsource transit data to improve accuracy and reliability
• Receive instant service alerts for detours or delays
• Subscribe to favorite routes and get proactive updates
• Access offline schedules even without data

The Transit App includes TheBus, Skyline, Biki, and even Rideshare as part of its wayfinding design, giving riders the most options to choose how to get around

The Transit app is available for free on iOS and Android devices.

Honolulu is one of 300 cities across North America using Transit as their official mobility app, including New York City, Los Angeles, Toronto, and Seattle.
As the City continues to expand transit service and invest in multi-modal options to reduce traffic congestion and carbon emissions, Transit app integration marks another milestone in making Honolulu’s transportation system more accessible, modern, and rider-focused.

About Transit:

Transit is the app that makes life better without a car in more than 900 cities worldwide. Millions of public transit riders rely on its accurate real-time updates, intuitive step-by-step navigation, and helpful crowdsourcing features. The app gives riders powerful tools to speak up for better car-free transportation and helps transit agencies bring together fare payment, on-demand transit, bikeshare, scooters, carshare, taxis, and more. Transit is based in Montréal, Québec. Learn more at transitapp.com.