Bus stop map

I came to the workshop with an idea for a bus map that shows with LED’s the position of the bus in relation to the stops along the route, so users know how far away the bus is from their stop. Due to the limited resources available to us we needed to simplify the traditional bus map into its most simple form. We brainstormed alternative ways to communicate time, which is essentially the primary function of the design.

The solution was simplifying the bus map to something linear, in this case suspending a strip of LED’s on a chain inside a translucent piece of PVC pipe which, when lit up, represent the position of the closest bus. The stops are represented by outer rings along the length of the tube. The design is self sufficient and is powered by pulling down on the chain connected to the LED’s which feeds off a spring loaded rotary generator at the top the tube. So when the chain is pulled down by the user, (the chain is spring loaded so would then travel back up the tube) the generator sends power to the appropriate LED/s showing where the bus is in relation to the stops along the route.

A scenario for this design would be:

Jim Davies catches the bus to work every morning. He catches the 8:45 bus from Stop 16 in Ashgrove. Before he catches the bus, Jim buys a coffee from the café across the street. As he is a regular they give him a good deal and they know his name. This particular morning Jim is running five minutes late, which is the usual time he allows to cross the street and buy his coffee. The design concept has been newly installed at the stop 16 bus stop, so Jim pulls down on the chain and is able to check where the bus is on-route, and how much time he has until it gets to his stop. If it’s running late, as he was this morning, he still may be able to catch his coffee.