Citymapper’s surprise pop-up bus route hit the streets of London this week, but unlike its fellow branded bus tours, the project was designed as a live experiment for the app’s developers and not merely as marketing stunt

The CMX1 circular route ran between Blackfriars and Waterloo, picking up and dropping off consumers for free. The green bus, which was supported by Transport for London, offered a number of extra features to customers, including wifi and USB charging ports.

The transport app, which operates in 40 cities globally, only announced news of the bus a day before it launched. Despite the subsequent hype of London’s media, it was not offering interviews or press previews to promote the campaign –probably because it didn’t start off life in the marketing team. Instead the initiative previously known internally as Project Grasshopper was designed as a genuine experiment to test the software stack Citymapper has developed to run and operate a bus network.

The bus itself is smaller and brighter than the iconic Routemaster and features a real-time moving map display so that users can see exactly where they are on their journey. Drivers operate the service via a tablet that tracks how far ahead and behind its fellow drivers are on the route. Throughout the journey the software suggests continuing at a steady pace or easing on the break in order to regulate the route’s service and avoid bus crunching.

Data as to how the buses were navigating London’s traffic at a ‘smart’ pace is sent back to Citymapper’s developers over the course of the two days, meaning the software is developed and improved in real time.