In the end, Citymapper running buses and acting as a kind of Uber junior was always a bit of a weird distraction from its core mission, and it always felt experimental. These include a mismatch with its mission in the evolution of the product from bus operation to shared cabs a desire to focus on Pass, its subscription service that provides access to mobility services including public transit, bicycles and cabs for one fee a desire to give its partners more emphasis rather than competing with them economics that don’t make sense without focus specifically on making them work and regulations that hampered some of its efforts, including operating bus lines.

In a Medium post detailing the decision to end the program, Citymapper noted a number of reasons why it’s shutting down the program and this line of product development. Since then, the company has gone from running one bus route in London designed to supplement a need for customers that wasn’t currently well-addressed by existing transit options, to operating shared cab rides, and the program has been renamed from Smarbus to Smartride to finally Citymapper Ride.

City navigation and public transit app Citymapper is ending the program it called “Citymapper Ride,” which has gone through a number of incarnations since its introduction back in 2017.

Citymapper bus