Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Sarah Gleeson

Necessary services that we use everyday without a second thought are usually the ones that need the most improvement in terms of Customer Experience.

I take the train everyday to and from work and after a while you just accept the inevitable delays from leaves on the track, people falling into you when the train stops abruptly and stuffy unbreathable air.

I used to use the tram years ago and there was a fight every morning to push my way on and avoid having someone’s smelly breath breathing down on me — oh the perils of public transport!

So it’s safe to say, I’ve never much liked public transport in Dublin. Even at the best of times it’s cramped, stuffy and late.

I just love this Dublin Bus GIF by Agrand! Image Credit: Agrand

Last year, I was contracted out to a client and had to get a bus for a few months to their offices. What I learnt in that time is that by comparison to the DART and Luas, Dublin Bus has by far the worst customer experience of public transport in Dublin. Every day I left the bus angry and frustrated, which is that last state you want to be in before or after work.

So, I started making a list of the top pain points in my customer journey and suggestions on how they might be resolved.

Seating Upstairs

Have you ever squeezed onto a double-decker bus which is “full” only to find out after a few people get off, that most of the seats upstairs were free?

Ok I get it, some people are only going a few stops and want to stand downstairs — that’s their prerogative. But there needs to be a system in place to inform people downstairs that there are seats available upstairs.

Dublin Bus introduced small monitors on the bottom of the stairs on some of their buses. This was a step in the right direction, but those small blurry screens flicking from one view to the next make it incredibly difficult to see free seats on a busy bus.

The main issue here is that upstairs the seats near the back of the bus are very hard to see from the stairs if the bus is quite full. You can start to feel very self-conscious, with everyone staring up at you as you walk down the aisle only to find there are no seats.

Car park lights help identify free spaces quickly

A simple solution here could be taken from the modern car park — a small green light appears above seats to indicate it’s free, a red light means it’s taken. Downstairs you could have a counter to say “6 free seats upstairs” if there was a small sensor in each seat.

Leap Card Tag

There is a Leap card (travel pass) tagging machine on the inside right of the entryway to allow those who have weekly / monthly passes, etc. to scan and get onto the bus quickly.

There are three problems with this card reader:

1 – It’s in a really awkward position which blocks the flow of other passengers
2 – It always takes the maximum fare if you don’t have a monthly pass
3 – There’s nowhere to explain how it works to tourists / infrequent bus users

How could this be solved?

Widen the passageway by reimagining the luggage storage facility
Have more card readers further down the bus corridor
Allow customers to tag off too, so they don’t have to pay the maximum fare
Have clear instructions on the website, in app, at stops and on the bus

These simple changes could help avoid fare overpayments and ease the flow of passengers thereby reducing bus delays.

The Full Bus Conundrum

We’ve all been there — seeing a full bus zoom past a crowd on a cold, wet, miserable day.

At the moment it’s completely up to the driver’s discretion if they consider the bus to be full. So many times I’ve seen bus after bus pass by with an ever-growing group waiting to get out of the rain and onto a bus.

The failure here is that it’s completely subjective — where one bus driver will think his bus is full, another will consider it easy to fit a couple of passengers on board.

An easy solution could be a counter that goes up / down as passengers get on and off the bus. This will remove the emotional responses to the situation and encourage drivers to stop knowing exactly how many people they can let on.

Middle Doors

One thing that Dublin Bus does really well is the electronic signage they have on the bus to indicate what stop you’re arriving at. These signs are also used for standard safety messages including one which asks you to please disembark through the middle doors only.

Getting off the bus through the middle doors makes perfect sense — it allows passengers getting on to take over the front door entirely thereby speeding up the process of getting people on and off the bus.

The problem with Dublin Bus though, is that the drivers rarely open the middle doors. I have been fooled too many times into believing they will open only to miss my stop because I can’t make my way through the crowds to the only open door at the front, nor can the driver hear me shouting down the corridor.

This is the simplest of all problems to fix. The middle doors should automatically open every time the front doors are open. Thus improving the flow of passengers on and off the bus and decreasing delays.

Image Credit: Agrand

I’m by no means an authority on this subject but these simple solutions could save millions of customers a lot of unnecessary stress. I believe that Dublin Bus have proven their investment in improving the overall customer experience — such as the addition of bilingual electronic signage, USB charging ports, free wi-fi, as well as route updates and possibly cashless fare payments coming in 2019 so I’m hopeful for further positive change.

My proposed solutions may not be cheap or easy to implement, however, the positive impact they would have on our experience of Dublin Bus would go a long way to enhancing the brand.

Have you noticed anything on your local public transport that could be improved upon?

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The Customer Experience of the Mundane Everyday was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Customer Experience of the Mundane Everyday

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