Embark (YC S11) wins "Best transit app" award

Congrats on the award!<p>Is there money to be made in this space? Ads? Exit to Google? I find it to be a small market for ycombinator to invest in, but maybe I am missing something.

For Windows Phone users in Chicago, I can't recommend CTAWatch highly enough. I haven't tried Embark yet, but CTAWatch has become my favorite public transit app across iOS, Android &#38; WP7:<p><a href="http://www.triton-tek.com/solutions/mobile/apps/cta-watch" rel="nofollow">http://www.triton-tek.com/solutions/mobile/apps/cta-watch</a><p>Disclaimer: I have no ties to the developer or company selling the app - I'm just a very happy user.

I feel a little sorry for other entrants in the MTA competition- it came across as being a competition for independent developers making apps in their spare time. Certainly, it seems like 90% of the entries were exactly that.<p>Impossible to compete with a Y-Combinator backed startup, really.

I wish someone would build an integrated BART+MUNI+CalTrain app. When I evaluated transit apps over a year ago, I liked the UI of iBART the best but ultimately went with iCommute because it had MUNI+BART in 1. Still had to get a separate app for CalTrain and then another separate app for San Jose Transit for when I was down there.

Some features I've wanted to see in mass transit apps:<p>* Notify the user when they are about to reach their destination (so that you know to get off). I think there are ways to do this now but it isn't integrated into the maps app.<p>* Give me mass transit directions to a destination knowing that I am already on a train/bus.

What's the business model?