Metro partners with the Transit app to provide a seamless experience for riders who rely on getting real-time information about buses and trains on their smartphones.

Metro is offering riders access to a free subscription to Royale — a set of special features within the Transit app. Metro riders can redeem their free Royale subscription in the app through April 2023.

The Transit app lets riders easily find nearby estimated arrivals in real-time for Metro buses and trains along with information on other transit lines and mobility options such as Metro Micro, Metro Bike Share, scooters and rideshare.

With Royale, you’ll get access to additional features including:

•Special app themes and icons, inspired by transit systems around the world — including a Metro themed icon, available only to Royale subscribers.

•Early access to new features like Transit’s schedule change visualizer. Whenever the schedule on your line changes (for example, during holidays or service adjustments), Transit app will automatically notify you in advance. You can even browse charts showing how service levels on your line changes by the hour, day, and week.

•The ability to get additional route options in Transit’s trip planner by tapping the “Show more trips” button.

•A custom avatar and nickname in the app. You can choose a custom avatar and nickname, which will appear on the leaderboard for GO, Transit’s popular crowdsourcing feature which allows you to be crowned #1 on your bus line when you help the most riders.

•Additional icons to choose from when saving locations such as home, work, or school. These icons share a design that matches the medieval monarch theme of Royale.

There are two existing features of the Transit app for non-Metro transit lines that riders will only be able to continue to access with a Royale subscription:

•Users with a Royale subscription will continue to see upcoming departures for all bus and rail lines near their location. Without a Royale subscription, however, the number of departures in the app for non-Metro services will be limited to only lines that are less than 200 meters away, or a minimum of the the closest four lines.

•Users with a Royale subscription looking at the full schedule of a line will continue to be able to view all departures in the app. Without a Royale subscription, however, the ability to view all upcoming departures for non-Metro lines will be limited to 10 or all departures within the next six hours — whichever comes first.

You do not need to sign up for or create an account to access Royale — all you have to do is press a button in the app to redeem your free subscription. However, if Metro and Transit do not continue their agreement beyond April 2023 — when the current contract expires — you will need to pay a subscription fee to keep using Royale.

As Royale rolls out in the coming weeks, you’ll see a screen informing you about the available upgrade. From there, it’s a simple tap to redeem the free trial subscription and get started using all the features that Transit has to offer.

Read more about Royale here.