Solllohub and Tharanathan – A MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH TO IMPROVING BUS SCHEDULE READABILITY – 2006

Description

This document reviews NJ Transit bus schedule design, production, and legibility research. NJT prints 20–25 million schedules annually for 231 routes, updated quarterly and available as PDFs. Current layouts use long columns, black-on-white text, and require rotating schedules to read timepoints. Human factors analysis shows reading schedules involves scanning, recognition, and decision-making; typography, contrast, proximity, and simplified tables improve comprehension. Comparative analysis finds most agencies use landscape, diagonal timepoints; common effective features include zone distinctions, map consistency, shading, and labels. Focus groups and prototype tests favored zebra striping, slanted time-point labels, zone coding, and a directional (continuous) schedule over separated weekday/weekend tables. Tests revealed high error rates driven mainly by small fonts; larger fonts and simplified layouts substantially improved zone recognition and user preference. Recommendations: increase font size, retain directional format, streamline information, emphasize zone/map integration, and explore alternative ways to distinguish time periods.