MobileMeter vs Bus Times
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
MobileMeter
Easily pay for on-street parking directly from your iPhone or iPad. Access your parking history, charges, and profile information through a secure website, and print reports.
- Pay for on-street parking
- Use iPhone or iPad
- Access secure website
- View parking charges
- Access parking history
- Print reports
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MobileMeter provides an easy way to pay for on-street parking using your iPhone or iPad. You can also login to our secure website to access parking charges, history, profile information and print reports. Registration with us is free and you are never under an obligation to use our system once you join. If there are ways we can help make your life easier as you're taking the key from the ignition, please let us know!
Bus Times
Get real-time bus arrival information for Chicago. Save favorite stops, organize them, and receive alerts before your bus is due. Features include GPS bus stop mapping and large text view for accessibility.
- Real-time bus arrival times
- Favorite stops management
- Arrival alerts
- GPS bus stop map
- Large text view for accessibility
- Auto-refresh timetable data
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Ever been stood at a Bus Stop wondering when the next bus is? Or sat at home / in the pub wondering if you need to set off yet? There are a couple of way to do this if you are in Chicago, but none are specifically aimed at the iPhone. 1.Text the bus stop number to CTA on 41411 (Possibly incurring a charge) 2.Use the "CTA Bus Tracker" at http://www.ctabustracker.com/ in Mobile Safari (What a hassle to navigate and remember all your stop numbers) Now you can have a dedicated app which will store your favorite Bus Stop numbers and present the results in an iPhone / iPad friendly format. With lots of useful features some of which are not available on the web … • Where available get the REAL arrival time of the busses, not timetabled times, but the actual time the bus is due at your chosen stop via the GPS tracker on the bus. • Store a list of "Favorite Stops" and organise them in Alphabetical order or simply order / rename them as you like. • Busses with a Live Feed will have their times highlighted in green and show how many minutes until they are due. • You can tap on results to be alerted at your specified number of minutes before the bus is due, so you know when to set off. • Set an Auto-Refresh time to regularly reload the timetable data (Double Tap at the top of the timetable to enable). • The app will offer to fall back to SMS if you don't have a Data Connection on your phone. • Optional Shake to refresh and pull down on the results to refresh times. • Use your phone's GPS to show a map of all the bus stops around you. • Our app uses the "text-only" version of the CTA Bus Tracker page and doesn't download images etc, this makes its very quick and saves on your data usage. • Large Text view for Sight Impaired users of iPads (enabled in the settings). IMPORTANT - Before purchasing we suggest you use the CTA Bus Tracker site linked above to make sure you can see information on the busses and stops you require. We can only provide the same information, so if you cannot find relevant information on their website, our app will not be able to magically provide it. Please don't shoot the messenger by leaving negative reviews regarding the actual Bus Times data we display, this is from the CTA website and we can only show the data they offer. If the times are wrong, or the bus doesn’t turn up, then the problem is with their data or services and not our wonderful app! :) If you have any suggestions or in the unlikely event of a problem please contact us via the Icons on the Service Status tab (Email, Twitter, Facebook, WWW), rest assured that you will receive a swift personal reply to any comments you send us. Timetable information provided by Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). Note: Neither this application or its author is associated with or endorsed by CTA.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Bus Times at 100% against MobileMeter's 33%. Bus Times also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.5) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 15.6). MobileMeter's advantage is price (Free vs $0.99) and ratings volume (732 vs 1). On update cadence, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
MobileMeter is free to download; Bus Times costs $0.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Bus Times holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: MobileMeter has 732 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 33% of MobileMeter's written reviews are positive against 100% of Bus Times's.
MobileMeter ships an update every 30 months, Bus Times every 40 months. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | MobileMeter | Bus Times |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $0.99 |
| Rating | 4.5 (732 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 33.3% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 732 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 30 months — better | Every 40 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 41 MB | 26 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | City of Champaign | Kevin Marshall |
Customer experience
MobileMeter
Bus Times
Bugs and requests
MobileMeter
Reported bugs
3 issues- Crashes on launch
- Doesn't work on latest iOS
- Parking time not reflected on meter
Requested features
4 requests- Add Apple Watch app
- Allow early parking session end
- Improve UI and UX
- Add QR code scanning for parking spots
Bus Times
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
MobileMeter
No in-app purchases
Bus Times
No in-app purchases









