u/thecarbikeguy

We all know the ghost bus.

The sign says 3 minutes. Then 2. Then 1. Then it just disappears. No bus ever turns the corner. The countdown lied to your face and there is nobody to complain to.

Or worse, out in the country, where there is one bus today and if it does not show, you are not going anywhere. The next one is tomorrow. Or Thursday.

And the maddening part is always the same: there is no way to know. You just stand there. Waiting. Hoping. Eventually you accept it is not coming, you figure something else out, and nobody anywhere acknowledges that it happened.

I kept thinking, what if people could just warn each other?

If someone already knows the 11:20 never showed, why can't the person still walking to the stop know that too?

So I built it. If a bus ghosts you, you flag it. Anyone heading for that same stop sees it before they waste twenty minutes in the cold. It does not fix Irish public transport, nothing short of a national rethink will. But it means people are not standing in the dark on their own anymore.

And when a bus actually is running, you can see where it is on the line, so you know if it is two stops away or still ten minutes out.

That one idea turned into a whole app along the way. Every feature in it started as something that annoyed me on my own commute.

You know the sprint between the train and the Luas, holding two timetables in your head, guessing if you will make the connection? Now they sit side by side. One glance and you know.

You know leaving the house too early and freezing on a platform, or too late and watching the doors close? You set the alarm once, telling it how long your walk is, and it goes off at the exact moment you need to leave. Not when the train is leaving. When YOU need to walk out the door.

You know living out the country, someone driving to the station to collect you, texting "where are you now?" five times? You send them one link. They watch your train move in real time and leave the house at the right moment. They do not need the app, they do not track you, they just see the train and when it gets in.

And if you live near a level crossing, you know that gamble, do I chance driving over now or will I be sat at a closed barrier for ten minutes? You can see the train coming and decide before you leave. Sydney Parade, I am looking at you.

It is all in Gaeilge too, every screen, every label, every stop name. That part was just for the love of it.

It is called EZ Commute IE and it is live. Everything you actually need to commute is free and always will be. There is a premium tier for a few extras like dark mode, seasonal themes and more languages, but nothing behind it blocks your commute

The honest truth is the ghost bus warnings only work if people are using it. One person flagging a no-show helps the next ten heading for that stop. So this is less me selling you something and more me asking the country to keep an eye out for each other.

Link in the comments if you want to be part of it.

And here too in case it gets lost.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.androidmeda.commuteeasyireland.

Feel free to rate and provide feedback on the app store listing.

Working on the iOS App too and publishing it soon.

Thanks so much.

Edit: Fixed typos and some Grammar.

Built an Android commuter app for Ireland over two years. Now in Open Beta.

I am not here to tell you this is the best app ever built. I am here to tell you it solved my problem every single morning for two years, and I think it might solve yours too.

(Long one. Worth it if you commute in Dublin or rest of Ireland.)

Two years ago I switched to commuting by train daily into the city centre after moving to a new job. I had taken trains before, but there is a big difference between the occasional journey and the same route, every single day.

It should have been simple. It wasn't.

Too many taps to find the right departure. Too much scrolling to get to my specific station, my specific route, at my specific time. Every single morning.

So I built a small app for myself. Pin your station, pin your destination, open it, see your train, close it. That was the entire brief.

What started as a small project to fix my own morning became something I thought others might find useful too. This is not a side project I built and forgot about. I use it every single week on my commute. I am the first tester and the harshest critic. So here we are.

Connecting to the Luas meant flicking between screens, holding two timetables in my head, guessing if I'd make it. Now train and Luas times sit side by side. One glance. No switching mid-sprint.

Grouped departures so you only see the trains that matter. Smart alerts that work differently to every other app: you set how long it takes you to walk to your station, and the alert fires at exactly the right time. When it goes off, it means leave now, not check the app again.

And when you want to check live times without breaking your scroll, your game, or your YouTube rabbit hole, pin your favourite stop to your notification bar. It stays there, live, constantly updating. Pull down, see your next departure, swipe back up and carry on exactly where you were.

Live weather at your stop so you know what to leave the house ready for. It is Irish weather, so pack both and hope for the best.

Something I kept noticing at stations: people sitting in cars waiting for their family members, with no idea where the DART actually was or had to juggle the usual apps to find the times. If you have ever driven from Newtownmountkennedy to Greystones to collect someone and timed it wrong, you know the feeling. Now they can watch the DART move in real time and leave accordingly. And if you are on that DART into Greystones, one tap shares your live journey with whoever is coming to collect you.

Pin your favourite stop to your notification bar. Swipe down, see your times, swipe up, carry on. Close the app entirely, the countdown stays.

The app is fully available in Gaeilge, every screen, every label, every stop name. A small homage to the language, the history and the culture. It felt right.

The core will always be free. During Open Beta, every feature is fully unlocked from day one, nothing held back. Eventually I will test a premium tier where new features land there first, but the free tier will never block you from getting the most out of this app. That includes full Gaeilge support, every screen, every label, every stop name, free forever. That is a promise, not a pitch.

I have also deliberately built this to get you off your phone faster, not keep you on it. There are ads, but no engagement tricks, no dark patterns, no artificially inflated session times. Open it, get what you need, close it. Most apps are designed to maximise your time in them. This one is designed to minimise it. You win, not the algorithm.

I am constantly looking for ways to make this work for more people. Accessibility, simpler flows for those who find tech daunting, and scenarios I have not thought of yet. Someone near a railway crossing might just want to know if a train is coming before they drive out and get stuck in the queue. Sydney Parade crossing, I am looking at you.

Open to ideas on how I can help more, some crazy scenario that haven't thought of yet, let me know.

An honest note: there will be gremlins and bugs. That is the reality of an Open Beta and exactly why it is open. The more people use it, the faster the rough edges get found and fixed. As a thank you to early testers, I will be handing out premium redeem codes to those who jump in and share feedback. You can use those once the App fully goes live.

Two years. 700+ hours. Solo. Nights and weekends. Countless CS2 and Rocket League sessions with friends sacrificed. ezcommute.ie is live.

Download the App from Play Store here

Thanks so much.

PS: iPhone users, I am sorry, iOS is coming but it is not my area of expertise and things are moving slower on that front. I will get there.

PPS: Forgot to mention that I never collect any personal data and never will in future, if you delete the app, that's about it. Priacy first before anything else.