Show HN: Laminated Bus Schedules

http://www.chrisnorstrom.com/2011/07/creation-laminated-bus-stop-schedules-my-weekend-experiment/

by ChrisNorstrom • 15 years ago

94 51 15 years ago

petercooper3• 15 years ago

An interesting little project! I often wonder how different neighborhoods would be if people did beneficial things like this routinely without either relying on, or being held back by, civic institutions or businesses.

For example, the UK had a "big freeze" in November and December of last year. I cleared the ice from the sidewalk outside our house and kept it salted. No-one else on the walk into town did and it was a death-trap walk. If everyone else had spent 10 minutes a day doing their bit, walking around would have remained pleasant.

SoftwareMaven2• 15 years ago

This is one of the benefits of living in a highly religious area. The LDS church is big on service projects, so church members are out on a regular basis from the age of eight and up. Givwen the high density of Mormons here, that gives us the net effect you are speaking of.

On the ice inparticular, In the US, you could be liable if you don't keep it clean so it often is, but I can't stand letting ice accumulate on the cement anyway. My nerd forces me to clear all the way to the edge, pile appropriately so wind can't blow it back on the cement, etc.

eru3• 15 years ago

In Germany you would be legally obliged to keep the pavement outside your house ice and snow free.

rjsw• 15 years ago

Same in France.

iaskwhy3• 15 years ago

South European here (thus I have no idea what it's like to deal with ice)! So what happens if you go on holidays for a couple of days?

epochwolf• 15 years ago

Also true of Green Bay, WI. (It may be a state instead of a local ordnance. I'm not sure.)

petercooper3• 15 years ago

In the UK, it's a different ball game. A BBC story from 2004, "Clearing snow 'can get you sued'": http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3453039.stm

However, in recent months the government has noted that this was all a bit silly and now suggests that you won't get into trouble if you do the job properly. Still, a lot of FUD about this whole topic so people tend to just not bother.

mmatey• 15 years ago

Nice project! Just needs a little bit of design and color?

Color coding the North bound and South bound grids (From what I can see?) would be helpful.

frankdenbow• 15 years ago

Cool! In NYC at many stops this is already there, but I can see how this is useful outside of those places.

ChrisNorstrom6• 15 years ago

Oh, I'm curious, are they laminated and attached like mine or are they different. How did they do it?

almost2• 15 years ago

Well done for doing something to make the world around you a little better. If only everyone did little things like this how much better the world would be.

Im very supprised the bus companies dont do tgis though! Here in the UK nearly all bus stops have the schedules displayed, its very common to see route maps though. I would imagine the bus system wpuld be next to useless without them!

Here in brighton we even have electronic signs which show the time to the next bus, theyre pretty useful!

rjh29• 15 years ago

They're rolling them out in Bath too. Very useful!

AndrewDucker• 15 years ago

Here in Edinburgh I can get the bus times on my phone - there are iOs and Android apps, plus a mobile and desktop website.

http://www.mybustracker.co.uk/

It's incredibly handy, particularly as there are two bus stops I can take to get me to work, so I check the times as I'm leaving home and head to the one that's coming sooner.

almost2• 15 years ago

That sounds very useful. Theres a not-very-good web interface here. I keep meaning to write a scraper and use it to present the data in a more web and people friendly form.

Mz2• 15 years ago

I would be really interested to see some kind of follow-up data on this in terms of did it actually promote bus use. I love this but I wonder if it genuinely accomplished something.

EDIT: Or I would also be interested if someone posted comparison data for places that already have this versus those that don't. I am seeing some anecdotal comments here that some places already do this "officially" rather than as a guerrilla tactic.

ChrisNorstrom6• 15 years ago

The KNOWN immediate benefit is financial and environmental. People won't need to take as many bus schedules and the company won't need to waste money printing as many.

Mz2• 15 years ago

Thank you. That had not occurred to me.

aw3c2• 15 years ago

All over Germany the companies do this. Almost always there is also a network map and other information. I am flabbergasted at the state of public transport in your vicinity. How were you supposed to use it conveniently without that information prominently displayed.

Aqua_Geek• 15 years ago

I am flabbergasted at the state of public transport in your vicinity.

Sadly, I think this is pretty typical of the state of public transit across the US. Subway systems tend to be better - maps, when the next train arrives, etc. But the bus systems have little to no info.

_delirium• 15 years ago

That's true in much of Europe also, unfortunately (I don't know about Germany, but I can believe it's better). In France, for example, the rail system is well signposted, but route and timetable information about city buses is very inconsistent. Even true in usually-well-organized Denmark, which has a super-awesome metro, but out of date and difficult to read information at bus stops.

SoftwareMaven2• 15 years ago

Public transport is very different in the US than in Europe, and a large part of the reason is density. If that were the only reason, I think we could solve that, but unfortunately, a large percentage of Americans' attitude is public transport is for poor people, especially off the eastern seaboard.

I was alway hugely impressed with the public transport in Europe. Utah has pretty good transport (this project wouldn't be necessary, for example), but it is still difficult to use if you aren't either traveling around or to the downtown Salt Lake City area or have a lot of time you are willing to drop on the commute.

eru3• 15 years ago

Though inexplicable, there's actually a law dating from 1934 against long distance travel by bus on a regular schedule in Germany.

antiterra• 15 years ago

I don't know about inexplicable. A bit of research shows that it was intended to favor the development of rail and possibly automobiles (Hitler's Volkswagen project was declared in 1933.) It appears it also allowed for an exception when the bus service was a substantial or significant improvement ( wesentliche Verbesserung ) and, just recently, a young business called Yourbus ( DeinBus ) emerged successfully from the court system with a permit because a lower price counted as a significant improvement.

edit: It occurred to me that it was possible what you found inexplicable was why the law was still on the books. It seems from Deutsche Bahn AG's opposition to Yourbus, that interests such as the (now privatized) state rail and other industries would simply lobby for an advantageous status quo. Especially so, considering that Deutsche Bahn operates its own bus service, and has for a while, in a comfortable niche carved out from and protected by that very law.

trin_• 15 years ago

except travel to certain destinations like airports. also from nearly every city there is a long distance bus going to berlin ;)

baddox• 15 years ago

I'm guessing their attitude is that the vast majority of bus riders are regular riders (granted, this is probably accurate), and the few tourists and new residents can just by a public transit map.

terhechte• 15 years ago

Great Idea. These kind of laminated bus schedules are normal all over Germany, so it's easy here to find the right bus and to understand where it goes. But whenever I'm in the states (and that's rather frequently) I'm always grateful about Google Maps on my iPhone because it actually gives me a chance to use U.S public transit. Otherwise I'd probably end up in dark nowhere and never ever get back home since there is no information whatsoever at the bus stops.

I was always wondering why you guys had no maps at the bus stops.

djangodjango• 15 years ago

Next step: Get the buses to actually follow the schedules.

viraptor• 15 years ago

I think that's pretty much unrealistic, considering buses are affected by things out of driver's control. However you can still improve the situation by tracking the buses and providing a live estimation instead of the static schedule.

So, next step: get the schedules to follow the buses?

fhars3• 15 years ago

I expect busses to be mostly on time, and most of the time they are. It's not that the evening rush hour comes as a surprise every day, so it can be accomodated in the schedule. Of course, on really dense lines, time tables may just look like

  16  5 minutes
  17  all 3 to 5 minutes
  18  all 5 to 7 minutes
  19  08 18 28 38 48 58
  ...

And on the main bus stops there are the real time displays you want: http://www.flickr.com/photos/christoph_bellin/5305848773/

sschueller• 15 years ago

In Switzerland every stop has something like this posted: http://online.fahrplaninfo.zvv.ch/pdf/01/ah_01011a/ah_01011a...

Sometimes there is even an electronic sign which states how many minutes until the next bus,tram,train etc.

Also almost all have several of these inside to tell you where you are: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3203/3077018448_0b2162659f.jp...

tnorthcutt• 15 years ago

Great project. Hopefully you're able to collaborate with the metro department to get more stuff like this done.

The swagging tool and bolt cutter cost me $42.37 but it’s ok I returned them later.

I was really disappointed to read this.

ChrisNorstrom6• 15 years ago

lol. Don't worry I grabbed the ones that were used and returned over and over and over.

icebraining2• 15 years ago

Me too, I thought tool libraries were common in the 'States? Luckily he didn't have to pay to use them only for a couple of hours.

ChrisNorstrom6• 15 years ago

What's a tool library? If it were something that gets damaged in use then yes I'd buy it, but a swagging tool can't get dull, and the bolt cutters I used to cut cable wire like butter didn't dull either. The closet entrepreneur within me would never allow myself to buy a tool I only need to use once. Gotta make little cuts to save money here and there, capitalist style.

jsavimbi• 15 years ago

Very nice; I like it.

In Boston, they'd send a fella 'round to cut your schedules down. Public workers don't like being shown up.

petercooper3• 15 years ago

I just remembered a project along similar lines to this. A guy created a 'guerrilla' sign for a freeway in LA to reduce confusion amongst drivers: http://www.good.is/post/the-fake-freeway-sign-that-became-a-...

ChrisNorstrom6• 15 years ago

Yes, I remember him. He's my hero.

rmason• 15 years ago

Great idea but what about graffiti? In most major East coast cities those schedules wouldn't be around for two weeks before getting tagged.

warwick2• 15 years ago

Are you planning on maintaining these? In my city the route timings change depending on school schedules and time of year, so the transit schedule's that are posted at stops have to be swapped out three or four times a year.

ChrisNorstrom6• 15 years ago

My mom works at Metro, for popular routes the schedules don't change for years and years.

warwick2• 15 years ago

That's superb then. My big concern for any project like this is that maintenance and upkeep costs end up outstripping the initial layout by a considerable amount.

ben1040• 15 years ago

I saw this post and thought "Man, I should do this in my town," because my local transit authority makes no effort at making it easy for people to take the bus.

Then I looked at the route names/numbers and realized you are in my town! Thank you for making my part of the world better.

My coworkers and I were just talking about how difficult it is to navigate the public transit system here if you don't have a smartphone with Google Transit.

St. Louis is not like Chicago, NYC, or SF where people of all walks of life take public transit to work, either because it's highly convenient or because parking costs more than their car payment. Transit here is not convenient and the people who rely on the bus here are the ones who can't afford a smartphone with Google Transit, let alone a car payment.

jshort• 15 years ago

As a student at the University of Waterloo taking the bus is standard. You are able to text the bus stop number to the bus company number and then it replies with when the next 3 (ish) buses are coming. I wish you were able to find out more information then just when the next few buses are coming like when is a bus coming at 4 o'clock, or some real time data about buses running late. No smartphone is required which is a bonus as it is for public transit, and on a side note I like that you can text Google and get search results texted back to you.

cdcarter• 15 years ago

This is a fantastic idea, my city has similarly bad bus schedule postings. I'd love to see some usability studies on what a bus schedule should look like though. Usually the actual schedule design is just as awful as the way it is posted.

Also, using wire rope may have been a bit overkill, but I always support people informing the world of swaging tools.

4J7z0Fgt63dTZbs• 15 years ago

...if you think laminating is worth $10 per each sleeve, you should probably acquire the skill for yourself - it will pay for itself in long term. descent laminator costs <50 USD.

Show HN: Laminated Bus Schedules

Related Stories