National Center for Transit Research (USA) – DESIGN ELEMENTS OF EFFECTIVE TRANSIT INFORMATION MATERIALS 2004

Description

This report documents a 2004 study of how the public uses printed transit information to plan trips, building on a 2001 study. One hundred eighty participants at three Tampa Bay mall sites completed tasks representing five trip-planning stages. Over 90% correctly identified trip origins/destinations on system maps and selected the two routes needed—stages one and two. Performance at stage three (identifying bus stops) was relatively good, but nearly half of participants failed the final two stages, which required reading tabular schedules to identify four bus times. Testing of various route map and schedule design variants showed little effect on performance overall, except that separating bus times for different days into separate tables significantly improved accuracy. The report catalogs participant problems and offers potential solutions. After the exercise, two-thirds felt more confident using transit and about 20%—including some non-users—said they would use transit more, suggesting targeted instruction could boost ridership.