In Rhode Island, many people walk by RIPTA bus stops without having any idea where the bus goes or when it comes. In spring 2015, I lead a Design for America project on public transportation in Rhode Island, and we chose to address this lack of information as a low barrier to entry, high impact opportunity.
At first, we wanted to help RIPTA but weren't sure how. By identifying stakeholders, interviewing riders, and conducting research, we set a design goal to improve ridership. After several rapid cycles of ideation, parallel prototyping, and feedback sessions, we found that the bus stop signs were lacking key information, and decided that the best opportunity for impact was to make it easier for pedestrians to spontaneously decide to ride the bus.
Our design informs the user which route come to the stop and which major landmarks it goes to. By communicating this information to pedestrians and the general public, ridership would increase, increasing revenue and allowing RIPTA to pursue other initiatives as well.
Our material choice is adhesive vinyl, which is weatherproof, easily installed, and affordable enough that we could add them to all the signs in the Providence metro area for under 200 dollars. We installed stickers at several key stops throughout the city as an unofficial beta test. We then presented our design to urban planners at RIPTA to favorable feedback, and they are using our design as inspiration for future signage and graphics.
