About ekRota

Why we built it

Using public transport in Istanbul often means following several sources at once: where the bus is in one place, the metro's last departure in another, the ferry timetable on an entirely different page. And where the minibus goes is often known only to those who ride it.

ekRota was built to fix this fragmentation. Its goal isn't to produce new data, but to bring together Istanbul's already open transport data and present it in a way that's genuinely useful every day.

What kind of app

ekRota is a free, independently developed app. It has no affiliation with İBB, İETT, Metro İstanbul, Şehir Hatları or TCDD and is not an official agency app. All the data it uses comes from these agencies' public sources.

The app is built for iOS and Android and offers the same features on both. Platform-specific differences are kept only where truly necessary — for example, the base map is Apple Maps on iOS and Google Maps on Android.

Three principles we stand by

Not hiding uncertainty

If something is an estimate, it should be shown as one. On buses we show the real position of vehicles; on the metro, Marmaray and ferries vehicle-level live data isn't public, so movement is calculated from the official timetable — and the screen says it's timetable-based. When a walking route can't be derived from the real street network, the line is shown dashed. Rather than presenting certainty that isn't there, we'd rather tell you how reliable each piece of information is.

Asking nothing of the user

The app doesn't ask you to create an account, doesn't collect your email or phone number, shows no ads and sells no data. Your favorites and recent searches are stored only on your device. Location permission is optional; you can use search and timetables without it.

Showing where the data comes from

We openly publish every data source we use and its licence in one place, on the Data Sources page (in Turkish).

If you find an error

If you see an error on a line, stop or departure time, let us know. We forward errors originating in the source data to the relevant agency and fix app-related issues as quickly as possible. You can reach us via the contact page.