The best part about the Muni Mobile app is that it has day passes available for $5.50, which hasn’t been publicized much except on SFMTA’s website.
Longtime Muni riders might not have thought to look beyond their trusty Clipper Cards when paying their bus fares, but the Muni Mobile app is worth a download for anyone who isn’t a monthly pass holder. The biggest perk is that it has day passes available for the price of a round-trip ticket.
Day passes, which can be used all day until Midnight, are also available for purchase with cash from Muni operators, but of course you’ll need exact change.
This author has been an avid user of Muni Mobile since its buggy early days, and it’s come a long way since then. When first using the original app several years ago, it typically took a ludicrous amount of time to load on our then outdated smartphone — about ten minutes, which meant we had to launch the app way in advance of leaving for the bus stop. We also made sure to take screenshots of our tickets in case the app wouldn’t load for fare inspectors.
The app gradually improved though, and the new version works pretty seamlessly. We have a newer smartphone now as well, which might also be a factor.
Walking is our main mode of transportation, and since we don’t need a monthly pass, we were glad to switch to Muni Mobile from Clipper Card for traveling within the city (except on cable cars), despite the initial glitches.
Clipper Card has always been kind of convoluted and frustrating to use, especially given the fact that we’ve accumulated multiple cards over the years, physical and digital, all of which have small balances on them. (Granted, Clipper Card will consolidate all of the cards — for a fee.)
There was one minor bug we recently encountered with the current Muni Mobile app, which is luckily easy to avoid. When we tried using the “Buy Now” feature for the first time, there was a noticeable lag before the ticket showed up in our account, much longer than if we had just gone the regular route of adding it to the cart and then paying.
Additionally, Muni Mobile’s bus predictions still appear to run off SFMTA’s predetermined schedules rather than providing live predictions, so we use the old standby, NextBus, which is more reliable.
All in all, the latest version of Muni Mobile has provided a great ticketing experience, with the day pass being its biggest selling point.
