Photo by Chris Rief

Many Metrobus riders ended 2012 in disappointment when they discovered that the popular NextBus DC app, which formerly informed users how long they should expect to wait for a bus, stopped working. The application’s collapse was blamed on a dispute between one company that collects real-time transit data and another company that developed NextBus, while Metro—which did not officially recognize the app—evaded any direct responsibility.

There are other transit data apps available in the Apple iOS and Android stores, but few are as comprehensive and relatively reliable as NextBus DC once was. But The Washington Post reports today that the developers of these programs pin their faulty data not on other tech companies, but on Metro itself:

One problem, developers said, is that some of the information Metro provides developers for its bus system was missing data on route destinations. At other times, developers said, “weird” formatting or perhaps a software bug makes the name of a bus route — such as the 10A — appear as the time, as in 10 a.m.

When developers raised their complaints to Metro in online forums, they’ve gotten little or no response, they said. They point to mistakes in the data that were brought up years ago and have yet to be fixed.

The developer of DC Metro and Bus, one popular alternative to NextBus DC, calls Metro’s data feed “amateurish,” as well as limited by how much an app can extract from the transit agency’s servers. That can lead apps to stop responding, as DC Metro and Bus did around Christmas.

Metro tells the Post it is trying to patch up its relationships with app developers, but in the mean time, it still refers to its own website as best source for bus updates.