State of the art analysis – Thony Price

During the interviews, and also during my own experiences with SL, a common complaint is the lack of information when traffic is not running by the schedule. It puts the user in a situation of making a choice, staying on route or alternate the itinerary. This brought my thoughts to an application I used when I spent time in Gothenburg; “Where is the bus?”

http://www.vasttrafik.se/#!/Reseinformation/mobila-tjanster/var-aer-bussen/

The makers of the application, Västtrafik, are the same company that provides the transportation services in the region. It is a separate app to the itinerary planner and instead of showing the estimated time (time tables) it shows the position of the bus/light rail. It works like this:

1.     Open the application – it locates the closest station or bus stop to you.

2.     You choose the route, direction, mean of transportation.

3.     Press “Find”.

4.     A map shows yours, the stations and the bus’ position.

Because all vehicles in public transportation was already equipped with GPS due to the “arrives in x minutes signs” the implementation of this application was more a matter of transparency of the data at hand at Västtrafik. In the Appstore the main critic is that in a functional transportation system one shouldn’t need to ask where’s the bus at. Among the user that rates the app high most says that is solves the situations where there previously was a frustration due to the lack of information.

I enjoyed the application a lot both information wise and user design wise. I believe the more information available the better as long as it’s not presented in an overwhelming way therefore it’s clever to have it as a separate application in my opinion. The first screen of the app also spells out something like “Where !:@#%!! Is the bus?” which lets the design show that Västtrafik is understands those annoying moments of commuting. The map us also of a design that resembles to earlier user map-apps and therefore is easy to use.

To summarize I think this application makes a good job utilizing the technology already in place and is a good example of iterative design building on an understanding of the users perspective.