Moovit: Bus & Transit Tracker

Moovit Review: Live Arrivals in 3,500 Cities, Paid For With Full-Screen Ads

What stays free, and the unskippable full-screen ads that pay for it

When Moovit+ launched in August 2023, the company promised that trip planning, real-time line information and service alerts would stay free, and they still do. Arrival times shown in green come from live vehicle data, and Live Directions keeps sending walking steps and a get-off alert with the app in the background, provided location access is set to always. All of it is paid for with ads, and the company's own advertiser page sells interstitials as full-screen sponsored recommendations that cannot be skipped, alongside geofenced ads keyed to a rider's origin, destination and transfer points. Of the 150 newest English Play reviews, posted from September 9 to October 1, 2026, 105 gave one or two stars and 46 complained about ads. Several say a pop-up hid the bus they needed; others say a stray tap near the tiny close button sent them to the Play Store.

Live Location and green arrival times: agency GPS first, Mooviter edits second

Schedules arrive as GTFS files, the standard format transit agencies publish, and the help center calls official agency data the source of truth. Where feeds are missing or wrong, volunteer editors called Mooviters map stops, routes and timetables; their edits pass moderation and reach the app after an overnight load, while temporary detours go in as Short Term Changes. Live Location, added in version 5.104 in November 2022, works only on vehicles fitted with GPS and shows when the last signal arrived, so a stale position is easy to spot. Crowding labels draw on rider reports from the last 10 minutes. The company says it gathers up to six billion anonymous data points a day, yet at least 11 of the 150 newest English reviews describe wrong times or buses that never came.

Moovit+ pricing: ten App Store offers, one device per plan

Moovit+ removes ads and adds Live Location, Safe Ride, Compare Routes, Arrival Updates and Live View, a panoramic look at the stop. Since May 2026 it also carries AI Trip Insights such as Best For You, Weather Smart and Tight Transfer, plus automatic rerouting when a disruption hits; basic route filters stay free. There is no public price list. The help center describes a monthly and an annual plan, the annual up to 50% cheaper, while the US App Store lists monthly plans at $0.99 and $3.39, a six-month plan at $13.49 and 12-month plans from $5.99 to $19.99. The terms tie each subscription to a single device, and a plan bought on Android cannot move to iPhone. Transit sells Royale at $4.99 a month or $24.99 a year and runs no ads; Google Maps charges nothing for transit directions. Prices are regional and may change.

Background location, ad partners and the Mobileye ownership

The privacy policy states, in capitals, that location is collected in the background even when the app is not in use, both to personalize the service and to improve transit data; the switch to stop it sits on the in-app privacy settings screen. The US state privacy notice adds that geolocation and route data may go to marketing and advertising partners and that targeted advertising may count as a data sale, with an opt-out button under Settings. Google Play's Data safety form lists precise location among data collected for advertising or marketing. Usage data can also go to carbon-credit registries, with its own opt-out. Intel bought Moovit in May 2020 for about $900 million, and the company now describes itself as part of Mobileye (Nasdaq: MBLY). The policy sets a minimum age of 16, although both stores rate the app for all ages.