WaitWatchers
squeezing into a crowded bus is a thing of the past
The Problem to solve
Being a public transportation driver is an extremely taxing job; on average, public metro drivers have higher rates of cardiovascular and musculoskeletal diseases when compared to other professions. Driving a bus through heavy traffic is stressful enough, but this is not the only task a driver must accomplish to be effective; they must also monitor passengers, take fares, and optimally plan their routes to get to where they need to go, as fast as possible.
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Bussing is even hard for the everyday passenger. Paying a fare can be a chore, and can be problematic if you don't have exact change or a bus pass. To make matters worse, busses have to constantly pass bus stops due to overloaded busses, especially during times of high traffic. We have all been passed by a bus at one point or another, and it would have been nice to know ahead of time if you needed to find a different bus.
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This is exactly where WaitWatchers comes in; we use image detection on bus cameras to determine bus load, then route passengers to different busses based on this information.
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running late
BUS IS FULL
Forgot bus pass
OUR PROCESS
Ideation + User
research
Like many great user-centered design projects, we started ours with some brainstorming/ideation. Once we identified an interesting deign area, in our case buses, we began conducing user research. We utilized two user research methods namely: field observations and interviews. The information we gathered from these two methods helped us understand our users better and narrow our design scope.
STORYBOARDS + tasks
It was important for us to make sure we understood the needs of the target group. For the team, this meant embarking on a process of persona-creation, sketching storyboards and task analysis, which eventually lead us to a solution that supports our passenger's tasks and benefit both riders and drivers.
First, Choose a route
our final design
Finding a route
1. Search for your destination. Help us get you started by telling us where you would like to go!
2. Simply type in your destination, when you would like to leave, and hit 'Go'.
3. Select your route. We'll show you some different options.
Routes are ranked by their convenience -- how long they take, how far you need to walk to get to the stop, and how full that bus is expected to be.
Buying a ticket
Documentation
Final Design
Presentation
Poster
Initial Design
1. Link a credit card or bus pass to the app and use it to pay fares.
2. When you are ready to use it, simply access the ticket from the 'MyTickets' button and scan it when you enter the bus.
Meet the team
Ethan Mayer
CSE
Michelle Soedal
CSE
Alaa Amed
HCDE
Kyle Hickman
CSE