A new icon, a new name, and the same app you’ve trusted since 2013.
If you’ve used London Bus Pal recently, you’ll have noticed something: it’s not just for buses any more. Tube, Overground, trams, National Rail and the Elizabeth Line are all in there now. The app has grown up.
This left me with a problem.
The Kentucky Fried Chicken problem
London Bus Pal is as synonymous with buses as KFC is with chicken. Thirteen years ago, I picked the name without much thought – I just wanted “London” and “bus” in there somewhere – and I really didn’t like the “pal” bit, but it sort of grew on me. It’s served us well. But anyone browsing for a London transport app today will skip past it, assuming it only does buses.
Meanwhile, on forums and social media, people have been calling it LBP for years. If you’ve ever tried searching the App Store for “LBP”, though, you’ll know – you can’t actually find it. Time to fix that.
Goodbye, New Routemaster
The icon has the same problem. Back in 2013, the New Routemasters were genuinely new, and I figured I could draw one by hand – it’s mostly just rectangles, a triangle and two circles. It worked. It’s lasted thirteen years.
But the New Routemasters aren’t new any more. They’ll soon stop running altogether. And an icon featuring just a bus tells the wrong story about an app that now covers every mode of London transport.
A compass and a clock
The new icon is a compass rose with eight petals, each a different colour. It points to every corner of London, and represents all different modes of transport the app supports. Look at it a moment longer and you’ll notice it also looks like a clock – which feels right for an app that’s fundamentally about when.
A gentle handover
Thirteen years has taught me one thing above all: people are creatures of habit. I can’t just swap the icon overnight and expect everyone to recognise the app on their home screen. So the transition happens in stages:
- Keep the bus, introduce the compass. Look closely at the current bus – its destination board now reads “LBP” instead of “Bus Pal”.
- Quietly become LBP. New users don’t care what an app is called; long-time users will recognise LBP as what they’ve been calling it all along.
- Retire the bus. The compass is already growing on me. The bus may shrink before it disappears entirely, but at some point the New Routemaster has to make way. Maybe something else will take its place.
Yes, it’s a bit of a social experiment. I’m happy to own that.
What isn’t changing
The name and the icon are surface-level. The principles underneath the app aren’t moving:
It stays intuitive. Easy to use is non-negotiable.
No full-screen ads in front of time-critical features. When you need to know whether to run for the bus, you’ll never see an ad first. The handful of ads in the app stay out of the way.
It stays fast. I’ve spent more hours than I’d like to admit optimising LBP. Speed is a feature, and I’ll keep treating it that way.
It stays battery-safe. Some transport apps will warm your phone like a hand-warmer. LBP won’t. I benchmark against other apps to make sure of it.
It stays private. Your data is used the way you’d expect it to be – and only that way. Location stays on your device for finding nearby stops. I’m not trading it for Costa vouchers. And if you’d rather not share location at all, the app works perfectly well without it. I understand what “no” means.
What’s next
The rebrand is part of a bigger shift. I’ve been working on the next version of the app for a while now (it’s already a year late — that’s software for you), and I talked about some of the vision in an interview with Riku F. There’s more coming.
Thirteen years on, thank you for sticking with London Bus Pal. Here’s to the next chapter as LBP.
If you want to get in touch, I’m always at support@buspal.app.