Asheville launches new transit website with real-time bus tracking
Asheville’s new ART site puts live bus tracking, alerts and route maps in one place, aiming to help riders avoid missed trips to work, school and appointments.
Asheville riders who depend on ART buses to get to work, class or medical appointments now have one place to check where a bus is, when it should arrive and whether a route problem could delay the trip.
The city launched ridetheart.com on May 6 as a real-time transit site for Asheville Rides Transit passengers. The platform combines live departure information, route maps, bus tracking, stop-saving tools and service alerts, all built from publicly available transit data. It is designed to work on both desktop and mobile devices, giving riders a faster way to see what is happening before they leave home or step off another bus.
That matters most for people who cannot afford to miss a connection. A worker trying to get downtown for an early shift, a student heading to class, or a patient traveling to an appointment can now check one site instead of searching across separate pages or relying only on printed route documents. Transit Division Manager Chris Whitlock said the new site should make planning an ART trip easier and more efficient, and the city said putting route maps online makes them easier to use in everyday trip planning.
The biggest gains go to riders who need quick, up-to-the-minute answers. If a bus is running late, if a route is interrupted or if a transfer window is tight, the site is meant to show that in real time. That could reduce missed connections for people traveling through downtown Asheville and across neighborhood routes, where even a short delay can throw off a commute or appointment.
The site still has limits. It depends on internet access and a device, which means it will not be equally useful to every transit rider in Buncombe County. Riders without a smartphone, data plan or reliable connection will still have to lean on other tools, even as Asheville pushes more of its public services online. For the people who can use it, though, the new site turns ART information into something more immediate and more practical: a single check before the bus leaves the stop.
Know something we missed? Have a correction or additional information?
Submit a Tip
