About RHUL Mobile

RHUL Mobile is the unofficial student app for Royal Holloway, University of London. It is built and run by a Royal Holloway Computer Science student. It is independent of the university and the Students' Union.

The story

The first version of RHUL Mobile got built in 2020, in my first year of Computer Science at Royal Holloway. I was standing at Founder's Square in the rain reading a paper timetable on the bus stop, waiting for the 441, with no way to tell if it was running late or on time. Citymapper did not cover the campus shuttle. The official Royal Holloway app did not do bus times. The intranet had a PDF.

Two weeks later the first build of the app shipped with one feature: live bus arrivals. A handful of friends installed it. Then their friends did. The next feature was laundry, because the second most annoying part of halls life was walking down to the basement of Founder's to find every machine in use. After that, the campus map, because freshers kept asking where the Moore Building was.

Five years and a lot of Sunday-evening updates later, RHUL Mobile is on more than 7,000 phones across Royal Holloway. Still free to use, still no ads, still built by one person.

Why "unofficial"?

I'm not employed by Royal Holloway and the app isn't run by the university or the Students' Union. That independence is the point. The official Royal Holloway app exists, but it's built on a procurement platform aimed at admin teams, not students who need to know if the 441 is running. RHUL Mobile does the opposite. It covers the handful of things students actually open their phones for, and it does them in two taps.

The app uses public data sources for bus times (the operators' live GPS feeds) and laundry (the public machine-availability API). The campus map data is OpenStreetMap, manually verified against the official Royal Holloway maps and checked on foot.

Who built it

I'm Hasseeb Hussain. Computer Science at Royal Holloway, started 2020. I run RHUL Mobile as a solo developer through my company, Shacksolutions Ltd. If you want to get in touch, my LinkedIn is the easiest place.

What is in the app today

• Live 441, 441A and RHU shuttle arrivals for every campus and Egham stop.
• Live laundry machine availability across every Royal Holloway hall.
• Interactive campus map with real walking directions over OpenStreetMap data.
• SU and university events in one feed.
• Every RHUL society and sports club in one place.
• A student marketplace for textbooks, furniture and tickets.
• Deals from local Egham businesses shown right next to your campus map.
• Food outlet opening hours across campus.
• News from the university and the Students' Union in one feed.

How it is funded

The student-facing app stays free to use. There are no ads in the app and no subscription to read content. The Deals tab is paid placement from local Egham businesses, and there are a small number of optional in-app purchases (marketplace bump credits and the like) that some students choose to use. Server costs are covered by the Deals tab. If you run a business near Royal Holloway and want to reach students, have a look at the partner page.

Guides

Things on the site that are not features of the app, just useful for being a Royal Holloway student:

• Wellbeing and mental health support at Royal Holloway. What the university offers, what is free anywhere in the UK, and how to access it without a login.
• Getting from Heathrow Airport to Royal Holloway. Bus 8, Uber, train. Costs and times.
• RHUL Mobile vs the official Royal Holloway app. What each one is for.

Get in touch

Bug reports, feature requests, anything else: rhulmobile@shack.solutions. I read every email and reply within a couple of days.

Press and partnership enquiries: same address. The full press kit is here.

Find the app on Instagram at @rhulmobile.