Reece Martin

Public Transport, Technology, Life.

About

Hi, I’m Reece. I am the creator and host of RMTransit, a YouTube channel focused on the details of public transport systems around the world.

A bit about me

I grew up in the suburbs of Vancouver, Canada with basically no transit service. Through years of riding the driverless SkyTrain, travelling to other cities around the world, and later living in Toronto, I developed a passion for public transport systems. I also became interested in creating videos and blog posts that could go in depth on the rarely discussed details of the planning, and operation of public transport systems – especially rail systems.

While in Toronto, I studied Computer Science at the University of Toronto’s St. George campus, which was a challenging and rewarding experience that taught me how to learn as well as teach, how to tackle complex problems and well . . . Computer Science! More importantly though, it taught me the limits of what technology can accomplish without careful thought and planning. By the time I finished my degree which coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic I decided to try and pursue a full time career with my YouTube channel and blog – with the hope that I could help promote a greater interest in public transit in the public, but also more people going into related fields of study. My work on public transportation is not limited to my YouTube channel and I’ve had the pleasure of working as a Transportation Planner on transit projects in multiple cities and with multiple stakeholders as a byproduct of the word I present online.

I’ve developed my own perspectives on what makes transit great, living without a car for most of my life and relying on public transportation as well as walking for almost all of my trips, I like to think I can appreciate things from a rider’s perspective.

The RMTransit YouTube Journey

Started back in 2016, the RMTransit YouTube channel has gone from occasional videos shot on a smartphone camera, watched by not more than a dozen people to its current state. With more than 270 thousand subscribers and 50 million views, the channel has helped hundreds of thousands around the world to learn about public transit projects, networks, technologies and plans in a simplified and digestible format, as well as about project construction, news, vehicle design, and service planning. The channel has hundreds videos covering a breadth of transit and urban content, and has covered over 100 cities across over 35 countries, including international on-site visits such as the opening of the Elizabeth Line and the under construction Grand Paris Express.

If you are interested in working with me or having me visit a transit project you are working on, please drop me a line using the contact form.

Other Projects

I am a contributing writer on UrbanToronto, where I write a variety of articles including ones that condense information from my videos such as this one and this one. I’ve also written in Maclean’s about congestion pricing, the Daily Hive about the North Shore SkyTrain in Metro Vancouver, and in the Hub on Canada’s transit building crisis.

Besides public transportation and infrastructure, I am also passionate about consumer technology, computers, and electronics — I still occasionally do some software development work, and I still get very excited about new technology. I’m also naturally passionate about fighting climate change, and preserving our natural environment, and in my spare time I enjoy climbing, cycling, running and just strolling both in the city and the countryside.

I also have this blog, where I journal some longer thoughts on public transport and infrastructure that are more appropriate to read about rather than present in a visual format on my Youtube channel. I also use it to write about my life, and things I am learning. Feel free to browse around!

My Writing