New York City’s subway users will be able to track the transport network’s rat population on their smartphones.

Rats are endemic in New York and are a common sight on the city’s 472 subway stations. Only a few days ago a rat was filmed grabbing a glazed doughnut and scuttling along the track to share the treat with its chums.

Earlier this year New York City’s mayor Eric Adams named Kathleen Corradi as the Big Apple’s “rat tsar”. She vowed that New Yorkers would be seeing a lot more of her and considerably fewer rats.

But honouring the pledge has proved challenging, after she promised to bring a scientific approach to tackling the relentless rodent problem.

Now Transit, an app used by 1.2 million New Yorkers, thinks it has the answer. Not only will it advise passengers on the fastest and most convenient route. It will now identify the city’s most rat-infested stations, albeit with the help of thousands of rodent spotters.

The app has already identified the three rattiest stations over the last 30 days. Leading the roll call of shame is 191st Street, followed by Grant Avenue, while 149th Street - Grand Concourse station comes in third.

Mercifully rats are fairly nocturnal and congregate just after 2am which, even in a city that boasts that it never sleeps, means that most New Yorkers are unlikely to come across a colony of the rodents.

Preferring tunnels to bridges, they are also more likely to be found in underground stations in the heart of Manhattan. Nevertheless, some rats do seem to eschew the bright lights of the city centre, opting for the comparative tranquillity of the suburbs.

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) was rather unimpressed by the initiative.

“Given we have no idea of the methodology surrounding your rat census, we decline to comment,” MTA spokesperson Kayla Shults said in a statement to The New York Post.