The Night Bus Map

When the city introduced more night buses, transport planners assumed passengers would use the same map as daytime travellers. Complaints soon showed otherwise. At night, fewer shops and public buildings were open, familiar landmarks were harder to see, and some passengers were making journeys in areas they barely knew. [GAP] The existing map contained accurate routes but offered little help with the decisions people actually had to make after midnight. Designers recorded questions heard during late-night journeys, creating a practical list of navigation problems that office-based planning had overlooked. Updates are scheduled after major route changes, but smaller wording improvements can be introduced more frequently. Drivers review them too. A small design team began by travelling on the buses themselves. They watched where people hesitated and asked drivers which questions were most common. [GAP] Many passengers wanted to know where they could safely wait for a connection, how long a walk between stops would take and which well-lit streets stayed busy late. Drivers pointed out that visitors to the city were especially likely to ask for landmarks that were obvious during daylight. The team removed several kinds of information from the daytime map and added others. Minor daytime services disappeared, while twenty-four-hour stations, taxi ranks and late-night food areas became more visible. [GAP] The designers also enlarged the space around major interchange points because that was where people most often needed to compare alternatives. Planners also compared late-night journey-search data to see which connections caused the greatest uncertainty. Testing revealed an unexpected problem. A map that looked clear on a computer screen became difficult to read under the weak lighting inside a moving bus. [GAP] The team increased contrast, simplified some symbols and printed trial versions on the same material that would be used in vehicles. This practical testing changed the design more than several office meetings had. Colour choices were tested for passengers with different kinds of visual impairment, not only under normal office lighting. Some critics argued that the new map included information unrelated to public transport. The designers disagreed. [GAP] If a passenger needs to walk ten minutes between two services at one in the morning, street conditions are part of the journey, even if no bus is involved. The team deliberately avoided adding too many safety symbols because a crowded map would have become harder to scan quickly. The final map is now displayed at major stops and inside vehicles. The team continues to collect comments, especially from people who work late shifts. [GAP] Their goal is not to produce a perfect map once, but to keep adjusting it as night-time travel patterns change. Several changes that looked attractive in design meetings were removed once passengers struggled to interpret them during real journeys.