Railroad crossings
Every public grade crossing from the federal crossing inventory, matched to the actual rail line. Crossings on side streets you're driving past stay quiet.
"Railroad crossing ahead in 1,200 feet. Gates."
For charter & tour coach drivers
MotorcoachNav rides along on your iPhone and speaks up before every railroad crossing and every low clearance ahead, checked against the height of the coach you're driving today.
iPhone · Lower 48 states and DC · Works with the screen locked, next to the nav app you already use
Low clearance ahead in 1,800 feet. 11 feet 8 inches. Too low for this coach.
What it does
You set it up before you pull out. After that you never touch the phone. Alerts are spoken, even with the phone on silent. If you have other audio playing, it dips under the alerts and comes right back up.
Every public grade crossing from the federal crossing inventory, matched to the actual rail line. Crossings on side streets you're driving past stay quiet.
"Railroad crossing ahead in 1,200 feet. Gates."
Low bridges from the National Bridge Inventory plus railroad bridges, tunnels and canopies from OpenStreetMap. It knows going under a bridge from driving over it.
"Low clearance on the lower level."
Keep every coach you drive, by bus number or model, and pick today's. You enter the height; a safety margin of 6 inches is added unless you change it.
"12 feet 9 inches. Check the posted height."
Plan from the yard, a pickup or where you are. See up to three routes, each with every low clearance and crossing that matters, by mile, and its turns. It picks the safest, then the one that pulls up door side, then the fewest turns.
"On your route: low clearance in 1 mile, too low for this coach."
Every alert, every crossing you drove over and every low structure you went under is written down on its own, ready to share after the trip.
The nationwide clearance file is rebuilt weekly from federal and OpenStreetMap data and checked for updates daily. You can keep updates to Wi-Fi only.
On the iPhone
Real app screens with sample data: the coach and the hazards shown are made up.
Approaching a low bridge
Alerts come a set number of seconds out at the speed you're driving, so there's the same time to react at 25 mph in town as at 60 on a two-lane.
When you're driving a checked route, a clearance too low for the coach gets an early warning, even around a turn the GPS can't see yet.
Roughly 1,000 to 2,600 feet ahead: what's coming, the height, and whether it's too low or just close.
"Low clearance ahead in 1,800 feet."
A short reminder right before the structure, in case the first one was talked over.
Your coach
Pick the make, model and year and the length, width, weight and axles fill in from the maker's spec sheets. The height is always yours to enter: the height posted in the cab, with anything on the roof counted.
Pricing
One price covers every coach you drive. Planning trips, your coaches and the drive log stay free; the subscription starts the spoken alerts. Beta testers in TestFlight get the alerts free until the App Store release.
Every feature on. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
Good for the busy season. Cancel any time in your iPhone's Settings.
Works out to about $5 a month.
Subscribe right in the app: tap Start alerts and the subscription screen shows both plans and the free month. It's also where you redeem a code from us, and Restore purchases brings your subscription to a new phone.
Coming next
Today, the Trip tab checks ordinary car routes against the coach. Next comes navigation planned for your coach's height, length and weight from the start, arriving with the door on the address side, with maps that download on Wi-Fi for the states you drive.
MotorcoachNav is a driving aid. It doesn't replace posted signs, signals or your judgment. Resurfacing, snow and damage can change a clearance, and public data can be missing or out of date. No alert doesn't mean the way is clear.
You'll accept the full Terms of Use in the app before your first drive.
Get the app
MotorcoachNav is in TestFlight, Apple's beta testing app, ahead of its App Store release. Beta testers get the spoken alerts free until then, no subscription needed. Drivers and operators who want in early can write to us.