As a university student who decided to stay home instead of venturing on my own, I take transit A LOT. To school, to work, to meet friends, to grab some groceries, to do some shopping—I probably took Durham Transit to get there. This is mostly because part of UOIT and Durham College tuition is geared towards paying for a U-Pass for students, to make travelling to campus, from campus and between campuses easier. Even so, whether a University student like myself, or just an average Durham Transit rider, knowing when the bus is coming can be kind of frustrating—especially on cold winter mornings or extremely hot summer afternoons.

Nevertheless, I have noticed not a lot of people utilize—or even know about—the online tool Durham Region Transit has made available for riders to know when their buses are coming!

If you have never heard of DRT Online, you are not alone. Many individuals who take Durham Region Transit every day have no clue of its existence and its quite sad because it had helped me get places, in the most efficient amount of time, every time!

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When you go to the Durham Region Transit website, click on the “Where is my bus” photo. This photo will transfer you to the DRT Online website.

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From here, you can either Select a stop (preferably the one closest to you) or Select a route to begin. I generally use “Select a route” because it is so much easier than trying to figure out your stop number. Once you select your route, you will be given a choice of which direction you are going and which stop, in that direction you are going.

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Finally, it will tell you how many minutes until the next bus will arrive at that bus stop.

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I especially like this website because it is really user-friendly. You can use it not only on your computer browser, but on your cellphone browser (like Google Chrome via Mobile) if you have several buses you have to take during one trip.

Durham Region Transit claims these times shown on this website are created through GPS tracking individual buses so they are so much more accurate than just using the PDF schedule they provide on their website. If a bus comes 5 minutes early or is going to be 2 minutes late, you will know without a worry. I enjoy this mostly because I live less than a 5 minute walk to my closest bus stop, so when the time nears 5 minutes-to, I just run out of my house and the bus is almost always just turning the corner to arrive to my stop! Fantastic!

Give it a try, yourself, and I’m sure you’ll love how convenient this new transit hack is!

About the Author

Jennifer Liwanag is a fourth year Legal Studies student minoring in Communications & Digital Media Studies at the University Of Ontario Institute Of Technology. While her childhood dream has been to pursue law, she has an undying love for writing, creativity, discovering new gadgets and learning new software. You can keep up to date with her digital and creative lifestyle on her personal Newsfeed (www.jennibearrxo.com/) where she shares her new favourite gadgets and crafty projects.