In today’s world, time plays a major role in everyone’s life. The wastage of time by waiting for a bus at a particular bus stop can be reduced by discovering methods which help people to acquire information about public transport. People using inner city public transport would want to know what bus stop they are in, what buses come to the particular bus stop, when the bus arrives, the route it takes, when it reaches the destination, etc. They would like to know the travel timings of the bus both while waiting at the bus stop and also while traveling. So, it will be very useful if a product is made which can be used to know all the information related to the bus. In this work, a smart public transport information system using Bluetooth 5 is developed which helps users to connect to the app very easily as it does not require an active Internet connection. This is developed as a very reliable and a power-efficient system using the latest technology Bluetooth 5. An IoT sensor kit named, Nordic Thingy 52 is the main component in this project. We implemented it in a way to connect the city buses to users’ phones, which can process information in an interface they are comfortable with. It is believed that the use of public transport will increase once this product is released, because it solves many of the present problems which stop people from using public transport. © 2021, The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.