Instructions

The map

• Pan, zoom, and tap Drag to move around and pinch or use the +/− buttons to zoom. Tapping a station opens its panel; bus stops also open when the “Bus stops on tap” setting is on.
• Blue dot and follow mode The blue dot is your location, and the map keeps you centered until you drag it. Tap the ⌖ button to center back on yourself and turn following back on.
• Live trains on the tracks Once you zoom in (level 11 or closer), small markers appear on the rails showing where each subway, LIRR, Metro-North, and NJ Transit train actually is. Each marker wears its line’s color and points the way the train is traveling.
• Weather button The temperature button opens a 24-hour forecast and any active weather alerts for your area. An “!” badge on it means a weather alert is in effect.

The menu

• Nearby Stations and Stops Every stop within about a mile of your GPS location, closest first. Tap one to center the map on it and open its arrivals.
• Saved places (HOME, WORK, FAVORITES) Your pinned stations, one tap away; they show “None Set” until you add one. You set and remove them with the Save buttons at the bottom of any station panel.
• Find a destination Type an address or landmark and yamtam finds the nearest useful stations to it. From there you can get walk-only or transit directions from where you are.
• Jump to station A fuzzy search over every stop in every system, so “union sq” finds 14 St even if you misspell it. Tap a result to fly the map there and open the station.
• Jump to route Pick any line to see every stop it serves in order, with live countdowns at each. This is the fastest way to read a whole line at a glance.
• Tour Guide Curated self-guided tours and NYC attraction itineraries, each built around the transit that gets you there. Tap a stop in a tour to see how to reach it.
• Reload all content Clears every cached file — data, map tiles, and code — and restarts the app. Use it if the data looks frozen or the app behaves strangely.

Settings

• Theme (Light / Dark / System) Chooses how the whole app looks. System follows your device’s light/dark schedule automatically.
• Bus boroughs Shows street-level bus routes for up to two boroughs at once. Bus lines and train lines can’t be displayed together, so turning a borough on switches the train systems off, and vice versa.
• Train systems Turn any rail system (Subway, LIRR, Metro-North, NJ Transit, PATH, AirTrain) on or off. Switching one off hides its stations, route lines, and live train dots everywhere.
• Bikes & Scooters Toggle docked Citibike stations and free-floating VEO and Lime bikes separately. They only appear when you’re zoomed well in and within about a mile of your location, so the map never fills with dots.
• Bus stops on tap When on, tapping the map opens bus stops as well as stations. Leave it off if you want taps to only react to stations.
• Countdown Clock View Replaces a station’s arrival list with departure clocks per compass direction, listing the next six trains just like the boards in the subway. Bus stops keep the standard list, since they have no compass heading.
• Announcements Shows occasional notices from the yamtam maintainer (planned maintenance, new features) as a banner above the bottom bar while they are active. Dismiss one with × and it never comes back; switch the setting off to hide all banners.

The station panel

Tap any station on the map (or a name in the menu) to open it.

• Next arrivals Live countdowns, soonest first, grouped by direction with express trains folded into their local line. Green NOW means a train is at the platform; yellow means within two minutes.
• Tapping a route badge Any colored line badge you can tap opens that line’s full stop list, starting from this station. It’s the quickest way from “what’s coming” to “where is this train going.”
• Track pills and Terminal A pill like T3 on a big-rail arrival is the track the train departs from (LIRR, Metro-North, NJ Transit). An arrival headed to the station you’re standing in reads Terminal: some trains start or end their run here.
• Small clock icon A tiny clock beside “Next arrivals” means the live feed has gone quiet. The countdowns may be schedule-based or stale rather than wrong.
• Alerts Service advisories for this station and every line serving it, with planned work grouped by its start and end dates. Long alerts have a More… button, and section headings collapse when tapped.
• Elevators & escalators Live working/out-of-service status for every elevator and escalator in the station, most recent outage first. Outages show the reason and an alternate route where one is known.
• Entrances Every street entrance grouped by corner with the nearest address, labeled closed or exit-only when it is. Doors that duplicate at one corner collapse into a single counted row.
• Transfers Other systems reachable on foot from here — pills show each destination, and 🚶5m means a five-minute walk. Grey labels are information only (no tap target), and $ means the connection is a separate paid fare.
• View Elsewhere Opens the station’s Wikipedia page or MTA neighborhood map, and copies links to your clipboard: Widget and Watch produce widget-app pages for this station, Share copies a direct link that opens it in yamtam.
• Save this station Pin the station as Home, Work, or a Favorite so it appears in the menu. A checked button is already set — tap it again to remove it.

The route panel

Tap a line badge or use Jump to route to open a line's full stop list.

• Direction tabs The North/Eastbound and South/Westbound tabs flip the whole list around, always starting with the next stop of that ride. An “Express in effect” chip means express trains are currently skipping the local stops on this line.
• The dots beside each stop A filled dot marks a stop that express trains use; a hollow dot is local-only. A blue dot marks the stop closest to you right now.
• Marks and badges T means a terminal where trains start or end; ⤳ marks a station being served only because of a live reroute; ✕ means the route isn’t stopping there right now. Transfer badges list the other lines you can change to at that stop, and * means that transfer is currently reachable only from the opposite-direction platform.
• Countdowns along the line Each stop shows the trains running toward the end of the line, so you can watch a train crawl down the list as it passes. Green NOW means it is at that stop; yellow means it arrives within two minutes.
• Tap any stop Tapping a stop in the list opens its station panel with full arrivals, alerts, and entrances. From a stop panel, tapping a route badge brings you back into the line view.

Offline, install, and widgets

• Install it From your browser’s share/install menu, add yamtam to your Home Screen: it runs full-screen and keeps maps, schedules, and the most recent data for offline use. The menu shows exact steps for your device under “Add to Home Screen.”
• Widget and Watch pages The Widget page shows one station’s arrivals with no chrome, built for iOS widget apps like Glimpse; the Watch page is the same thing sized for a smartwatch screen. Both links are copied to your clipboard from any station’s “View Elsewhere” section.