I live in EU, but in not-so-reliable public transit country.
Outside of major towns, smart phone won't help you much to get most accurate time table. Paper timetable in the station is the only source of true information. You may find multiple contradicting timetables on the web and just hope they haven't been changed since then. Nobody cares to post emergency updates on the web. Sticker in the station it is. GPS live tracking is non existent.
We do have live tracking for public transit in 2 (maybe 3?) major towns. But that came before the era of smartphones - it was displayed in displays in stops. It's kinda cool to see your bus stuck in traffic one stop from you :)
Which country is that? Just out of curiosity (fellow European).
Lithuania. Our beloved Trafi does wonders. But it doesn't cover obscure little towns :(
Oh ok, but good to know :) I always wanted to visit the baltic countries once, and I usually travel around with public transport, so I'd have to consider that when planning I guess.
Well, public transit between major cities and in/out of country is OK. Online timetables are reliable enough, you can get tickets online etc.. No live GPS tracking though :) But tourist attractions in smaller towns or, worst of all, in between them is kinda.. tricky. One of the reasons why hitch hiking is not dead.
There are numerous first world countries that have unreliable public transport. This is the US and also in the EU, I can't imagine you've never encountered what I mean unless you don't travel very much (there is nothing wrong with that, but then why do you discuss it like this). Sure in the situations that you talk about a smartphone would not matter, but in the ones I talk about (and that I actually meant originally) a smartphone will tell you why there is a delay (suddenly, generally) and what you can do to mitigate it. Something no PA system will tell you with any amount of reliability.