If you are in New York City and you use Citi Bikes, you may have noticed: Google Maps has been displaying real-time data to help you know how many bikes are available in each Citi Bike station.

Google Maps showing “16/38 bikes available”

Before this new feature, the official app was the only way to check the availability of bikes. Of course, cyclists still need to use the official Citi Bike app to reserve and take the bike but the fact that Google Maps is showing this data is nevertheless very convenient. A lot of the time, people use Google Maps, not the Citi Bike app, to search for nearby Citi Bike stations. That’s because usually the user will already be in the Google Maps app while looking for their destination and trying to pick a route. Switching to the Citi Bike app is a step that will be taken only after they are sure they will use a Citi Bike, as opposed to other means of transport.

I wanted to confirm if the data is indeed accurate and real-time, so I compared the data from Google Maps with what I see in the official app, in the same moment.

Cite Bike app showing “16 bikes, 22 docks”

Interestingly, they do display the same data but in different formats. While Google Maps solely focuses on the availability of the bikes (available/total), Citi Bike app separately displays the number of bikes and empty docks.

Citi Bike’s format is more intuitive, especially when you are looking for a station to dock your bike. Because seeing “0 Docks” would clearly remind you NOT to go to that station if you’re in search for a place to get rid of your bike, whereas “38/38 bikes available” just sounds like good news. Ultimately, the number 38 is useless. Because you don’t care about the total number of bikes a station can accommodate. You either care about the number of available bikes or the number of available docks.

This is something new Citi Bikers should remember if they use Google Maps to check the station data. As they will soon discover, nothing is more annoying than arriving at a station to find out there are no empty docks for you to dock your bike.