The Keyword

AREA 120

Commute
better with
Pigeon, the
crowdsourced
transit app

Laura Rokita
The Keyword

AREA 120

Commute
better with
Pigeon, the
crowdsourced
transit app

Laura Rokita
The Keyword

Like many New Yorkers, I take the subway to and from

work, which is one of my favorite parts of living here.
But that commute can be one of the least enjoyable
parts of my day if I run into an unexpected incident or
delay. One summer morning, while waiting for a delayed
train on an unbearably hot platform, I wondered: What
could I be doing with my time in the 15 minutes I’ve
been standing here? Why couldn’t I easily alert other
riders, so they could avoid the same fate?

My cofounder and I approached Area 120, Google’s lab

for experimental projects, with an idea: build a
crowdsourced transit app that provides better real-time
information for riders, by riders, to give people around
the world access to accurate transit data. Pigeon
launched in September of 2018. Since then, Pigeon has
helped New Yorkers make better transit decisions on
hundreds of thousands of trips each month. 

Today, Pigeon is launching in five new U.S. cities:

Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and
Washington, D.C. Commuters in these cities can
download Pigeon on iOS or sign up for our Android
waitlist, and start commuting better by working
together.

More real-time information

means better commuting
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Pigeon users in each city will have access to

information that other transit apps don’t provide, like
real-time crowds, unexpected incidents, and more
context about delays. Pigeon sends alerts whenever
there is important information that riders care about,
like power outages and major service changes. Pigeon
also sends customized notifications to commuters
before they leave their home or office, so that they can
plan around delays, reroutes and even the weather.
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Ride better together with

crowdsourced reporting
With Pigeon’s reporting feature, riders can post about
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train crowdedness, escalator outages, live

entertainment and dirty or unsafe conditions. 

Pigeon also makes commuting more fun. Our users

commiserate over shared experiences like being packed
in a crowded subway, finding surprising joy from dogs
tucked in bags and celebrating local entertainers.

We are thankful to the community of riders that power

Pigeon, and we seek to help them become even more
familiar with their local transit system. So in addition to
announcing our expansion to five new U.S. cities, we are
also releasing an NYC Subway Insights Report based on
data from crowdsourced reports which shares how
subway riders feel about the subway lines they
frequently ride. We learned which station was reported
to be the hottest during the summer months, as well as
the lines with the most rush hour delays and most
crowds. 

With Pigeon launched in five new cities across the U.S.,

we hope to improve commuting for even more public
transit riders, as well as build local transit communities
that work together to improve their daily rides.

POSTED IN:
AREA 120

R E L AT E D A R T IC L E S
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