Introduction
When we began our project, we started with the scope of using wearables in conjunction with location-aware technologies. With that scope in mind we thought about experiences and problems in our daily life that could be improved through the use of wearables. One problem we all had in common was the terrible user experience of finding out the status of the bus we were waiting for. It’s not simply the fact that the interface for the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority’s mobile site is bad (which, well, it is), it’s that the entire conceit is lacking. Looking up bus information involves going to a mobile site, finding the route you are interested in, and then slowly and carefully parsing the information that is given back to you.
But the smartphone in your pocket knows your location, and the GPS system on the bus knows the bus’ location – this seems like a problem that could be solved in a way that makes it a much more pleasant experience for the bus rider. With their battery-saving potential and precise proximity detection, we thought Bluetooth beacons could form the tissue that connects riders and buses to enable a seamless and effortless experience of receiving timely and relevant notifications about bus arrival times.
Over many rounds of ideation and iteration that included individual and collective brainstorming, diary studies, user interviews, a survey, “body storming”, user enactments and prototyping, we tweaked our original idea and added a whole new dimension to what the service could do for users waiting at the bus stop. Through a survey and interviews we discovered the habits of riders waiting at bus stops and when and what kind of information they would want to have. Via user enactments we tested the limits of how many times we could notify users and what types of notifications were the best kind to employ.
By the end of the process, our initial idea of a bus tracker and notification system had evolved to become more than just another app on your smartphone or smartwatch. What we ended up with was a service that could serve as your bus commuting companion, help you build stronger ties with riders who used the same bus stop as you, and possibly incentivize more people to use public transportation.
“BusCat is your bus commuting companion, keeping you aware of bus arrival times without the need for user intervention, allowing for an anxiety-free commuting experience. BusCat also keeps you entertained at the bus stop and helps you get to know other riders who use the same bus stops as you do.”
We believe this to be the fundamental value proposition that our service delivers on. In what follows we will delve into more detail about our methods, the decisions we took as a result of findings from those methods, and a detailed proposal of the system, along with a discussion of its limitations.
Formative Study and Results
In order to probe bus commuters’ information needs and “pain points” in regards to their bus riding experience, and explore more design opportunities for the idea of a pervasive bus notification system, we conducted a formative study. The study consisted of a diary study together with follow-up interviews, and a survey.
The goal of this study is to better understand the information needs of general bus riders. High-level research questions that we kept in mind while designing the study plan included:
- What information do bus riders need most at different stages of a bus trip (i.e. before leaving for the bus stop, at the bus stop and on the bus) in order for a successful bus-taking experience?
- What sources and tools do commuters rely on to look up bus information they need?
- How are commuters’ information needs served by existing sources and tools?
Diary study and interview
We recruited six participants for the diary study, five of them were general bus riders in Ann Arbor and one of them was a visually impaired bus rider to help us provide solutions that could be accessible for different types of riders. One participant was a professor, four were graduate students and one was a retired resident in Ann Arbor who did not use a smartphone.
For the four-day diary study, we provided a Google Form which participants were asked to fill out each time they rode the bus. The participant without a smartphone wrote down her entries on a spreadsheet we made for her. In the form, we asked questions regarding:
- information needed before leaving to catch a bus, while waiting at the bus stop and riding on the bus
- location where a person caught the bus (bus stop or transit center)
- number of minutes waiting, and timeliness of bus arrival
- information sources checked before leaving for the bus and while at the bus stop, and number of times all sources were checked
- the weather during the bus ride
Click here to see a copy of our diary study form.
After the diary study, we conducted exit interviews with our diary study participants in order to learn more about their experiences. We asked each participant the same set of questions and added participant-specific questions based on any unique data we discovered in their diary study submissions.
Click here to see our interview guide.
Survey
The survey asked roughly the same questions as the diary study to provide a supplementary quantitative study on bus commuters’ information needs. The survey was distributed through the umsi.all.open listserv, social networking sites, and on Craigslist. We received 62 responses in total.
Key Findings from the Formative Study
From the diary study and interview we learned that there is a strong need for a better user experience for people wanting to know when their bus will arrive: a “push” experience instead of a “pull” experience, both at the stop and before leaving their departure points (home, workplace, etc.). This is especially true in bad weather since riders do not want to take out their phones when it’s cold outside. Two out of the six participants expressed desire for information to be broadcast or displayed at the bus stop (e.g. real-time bus location/status on a map), especially when a bus is running very late in order to decide whether to keep waiting or to choose other transportation options or just walk. Furthermore, participants expressed some desire for two-way, social communication: bus riders at the bus stop being able to communicate to the bus driver and to other riders about their presence at the bus stop and about the bus running late.
Despite their various information needs, our participants do not use existing third-party bus information apps frequently and they desire better tools and services. Two of our participants mentioned the AAATA website they use to check bus information and said information there should be more accurate. Three participants mentioned the digital display with bus arrival times at some transit centers as being very helpful, but not all bus stops have that. The accuracy of bus information could potentially be improved by Bluetooth beacons networked together by the smartphones of our users.
The survey results provided statistical evidence about bus commuters’ bus information needs, which complemented the findings from the diary study and interviews. The most wanted information was the bus arrival time: 96.7% (60 out of 62) participants checked that to catch a bus. We learned from the survey that the average waiting time was 8.3 minutes, which would be too long in polar-vortex cold weather. On average people checked bus information two times at the bus stop, with 80 percent of respondents (50 out of 62) checking at least one time.
These insights inspired us to:
1) provide information at bus stops directly (e.g. through a display) in addition to pushing it to smart devices including smartwatches or smartphones; this is especially helpful during bad weather;
2) not only provide bus information, but also support more social interactions at a stop;
3) provide a map that indicates real-time bus location/status.
Another key finding is that we can divide general bus riders, our target audience, into two categories: routine commuters and new riders. Regular commuters have the bus routine memorized and in most cases do not need to check bus information, whereas new riders rely heavily on all kinds of bus information sources and they also need a hint telling them that their destinations is just ahead while riding on the bus. Thus, our design should balance out the different information needs of both regular and new riders, and should allow users to set the service preferences based on their in situ information needs.
Image 1: Storyboard generated after completion of formative study, showing interactions between Bluetooth beacons and smartphone app
For more detailed findings and insights from the formative study, please check out our Milestone 2 report.
Experience Prototype and Results
User Enactments
For this study, we started by following Odom’s approach to brainstorming and bodystorming scenarios to explore answers to the research questions we sought to address (William Odom et al., 2012). Before plotting out our user enactments, we generated the following research questions that we wanted to address through this experience prototype stage:
- How will users like the proposed methods of gaining bus information across the whole bus trip?
- How will users interact with the digital screen at the bus stop?
- Is there any value to letting bus notification be two-way?
- What would users like to do to pass the time while waiting for the bus?
- How many notifications are too many notifications?
- What are some desirable and undesirable parts in our design regarding the bus notification system in 5 or 10 years?
We then created a set of six user enactments based on the scenarios we had developed, and we categorized them into three groups: one-way communication, two-way communication and an interactive display at the bus stop. Then we recruited five participants as our actors, and set up physical environments to test out all the UEs with each participant. After each user enactment we would pause to ask each of our actors a set of questions to get some quick feedback, and at the end of all the user enactments we would debrief the whole session with each actor by asking another set of questions. Through this within-group research method, we gained the opportunity to understand each user’s priority and preference regarding the enactments. We analyzed participants’ feedback to seek more interesting patterns that could guide our design directions in the future.
Key Findings from the Experience Prototype
Participants were mostly positive about the “push” experience, i.e. getting a notification automatically when arriving at the bus stop and riding on the bus. However, some users expressed concerns over the notifications. For example, one user wondered how the system knew which route she was going to take. This question prompted us to think more deeply about the information sources for our bus notification system and potential privacy issues relevant to our design. Some other users thought the notification on the bus unnecessary for them because they took the bus everyday and knew their destination well, but thought it valuable if they were to take a bus for the first time in an unfamiliar place. Such reaction confirmed the finding from the formative study to divide our target users into two types: regular commuters and new riders (or one-time riders); and to consider different information needs and interactions to serve different user goals of the two user groups.
Another thing we learned from the UE was that participants favored the real-time bus map, and preferred a more concrete map to an abstract route map. We had provided two versions of a map to participants during the user enactments, one graphical map with the layout of the city, bus stops, the bus rider’s location and the real-time bus location; the other an abstract route map in which dots represent bus stops and lines represent bus routes. Users thought the information on the graphical map, including bus location, bus arrival time and the map itself, was very helpful. One user mentioned that a map could definitely help those who don’t have a mental map of the area. However, most users were confused about the abstract map. Based on users’ reactions to the two versions of map, it was easy for us to decide that we would continue our design with the more concrete map.
An interesting minor finding with the map was that participants were not actually interacting with the display when checking information on the map. Only when asked by the confederate to switch between routes would they actually tap on the screen. Therefore, we thought there wouldn’t be any need to put an interactive display at the bus stop. We could just use an ordinary display and split the screen for different routes.
There were both likes and concerns regarding providing a game on the display. On the one hand, three out of five participants showed interest in the game on the display and thought it a good way to kill time at the bus stop. Some users even proposed more ideas about the game, e.g. social competition, a ranking system and variations of games. However, most users were concerned that if there were too many people at the bus stop, they may feel pressure or embarrassment about playing the game in front of others. Another big issue is when there are multiple riders at the stop who all want to check information or play the game on the display, how do we allow access by multiple riders? Still others wanted to continue to play the game after getting on the bus. The feedback opened up more opportunities but at the same time set more constraints on providing a game at the bus.
We also found that participants sought to exert minimal effort when interacting with the system. Most participants responded that they want the interactions involved in getting bus information to be minimized. For example, although sending and receiving the text message was only a way of faking the notification and we would not use it for our future design, we still gained valuable insight from participants’ negative attitude towards effort-taking interactions, and would pay more attention to simplifying the interaction of our design in the future.
A feature that received negative feedback was the idea of notifying the bus driver. One user was concerned that the bus driver might not stop if she didn’t send the notification to the driver. Another user questioned how to cancel the notification if her schedule changed and she didn’t take the bus. We decided to rethink the feature and consider how it should be approached. In the end, we decided to make this notification invisible to the user: when the smartphone app detects the Bluetooth beacon at a bus stop, it automatically informs the bus system that a rider is waiting. But the driver is not informed until the bus is approaching the stop, and then only if the smartphone app is still in contact with the Bluetooth beacon (indicating that the rider is still there).
The storyboard shown below illustrates how our idea evolved based on the inspirations from UE.
Image 2: Storyboard from UE’s
For more detailed findings and insights from the formative study, please check out our Milestone 3 report.
Final System Concept
The BusCat application ecosystem has been built around the use of a combination of technologies which primarily include smartphones, smartwatches, Bluetooth beacons and a display at the bus stop. The smartwatch aspect of the application is an optional compatibility that our product satisfies so as to meet the needs of the audience that own smartwatches. The app, however, can work entirely on its own on a smartphone.
With BusCat, the user can rest assured that they will get all the right information about the bus system based on the trips that they are going to make. As the first step after downloading the app, the user must create an account and enter in the addresses of the key locations that he/she visits using the bus such as home, school, work, grocery store and so on. The app will then create user journey profiles based on these addresses and use their locations to push certain information to the user when needed. This process is the basic profile setup for the user.
When a user is leaving any one of these designated locations, using WiFi geofencing, the app will detect that the user has left the area and pop up a notification to the smartphone and smartwatch asking the user if they would like to start a trip and select a corresponding journey profile so that the app can setup the trip. The user then selects the journey profile or enters in a new destination and proceeds towards the bus stop.
Image 3: Watch Screens for user while starting a trip
As soon as the user reaches the bus stop, the Bluetooth beacon wakes up the app, and the app in turn pushes a notification to the user (either on the phone or the watch) indicating the bus that they have to take and the estimated time of arrival at the bus stop. The BusCat application then asks the user if they would like to play the BusCat game while they are waiting for the bus to arrive. This game is unique, transportation-themed, and the points recorded in this game will be displayed on the game leaderboard at that bus stop. If the user is not interested in taking out his phone, he can view the bus’ current location and time of arrival on the digital display at the bus stop. The display updates after every 20 seconds and gives the user an accurate location of the bus.
Image 4: Watch Screen indicating bus arrival time
Image 5: Mobile app prompting user to play BusCat game
Image 6: Digital display at bus stop
Once the user gets on the bus, they will receive another notification asking if they wish to get notifications about the upcoming bus stops and estimated time of arrival to destination, any delays and other relevant information. The user can dismiss this notification to avoid receiving these updates. If the user requests these updates, they will get a notification on his watch and phone just as the bus crosses every bus stop with information about the bus stop name, the number of stops to the destination, and estimated time to destination. As the bus is just about to reach the user’s destination, they get a notification telling them to get up and walk towards the doors as they need to get off at the next bus stop.
Image 7: Watch screens for user on the bus
After the user gets off and the bus leaves, another notification is pushed to their watch/phone prompting the user to rate the journey and give some feedback and comments based on the experience that he had. This was the system concept from the point of view of routine commuters/users.
Image 8: Watch screens after the trip has ended
Image 9: Phone screen after the trip has ended
When a potential new user arrives at a bus stop, they will see the bus arrival times on the digital display. The display will have a QR code at the bottom which will direct the user to download the BusCat application. The user scans the QR code and proceeds to download BusCat. The app asks him to create a profile now or leave that for later. The app then directs the user to the main screen which shows them the arrival time of the buses that service the bus stop at which the user is waiting at that moment. The user then selects the bus they want to take and the app then shows a live map of the route with the bus in motion. The user is also prompted to play a game while they are waiting for the bus.
Image 10: Phone Screens for New User
Video Showing the Experience
We decided to break up the video into five distinct scenes which fully captured the essence of our product.
Scene 1: Ron is a frequent user of the product BusCat and he uses it daily while he travels using the bus system in Ann Arbor. In scene 1, it is time for Ron to leave his home for work. The scene opens showing him seated in his living room watching television and on noticing the time, he collects his bag, smartphone and wallet and switches off the television. As he exits the door of his apartment, he gets a notification on his smartwatch which identifies that he has left his home, and asks him if he would like to start a trip. The app then guides him to choosing a particular journey from the preset profiles such as grocery, school, work and so on. Ron chooses work and then proceeds to leave the building.
Scene 2: Scene 2 starts with Ron approaching the bus stop near his home. Just as he approaches the bus stop, he gets another notification on his watch indicating that the bus which he needs to take is arriving in 4 minutes. He then selects the option to open the BusCat app on his smartphone and proceeds to have a look at the screen display which is present at the bus shelter. The display has a game leaderboard in its left half and the right half consists of the maps and timings of the different bus routes that service this bus stop. Ron looks at the leaderboard and is upset that he is in second place. He sits down and takes out his smartphone to begin playing the buscat game. The smartphone directly opens into the buscat game as Ron had selected the option “Open on Phone” on his smartwatch.
Scene 3: In scene 3, Ron’s friend Sebastian arrives at the bus stop and asks Ron about the game that he is playing. Ron points to the display at the bus stop and encourages Sebastian to go have a look at it. Sebastian has no idea what BusCat is. He sees a message which prompts him to scan a QR code to download the application. Sebastian scans the QR code, which then leads him to the website from where he is able to download the BusCat application on his phone. On opening the app, it detects his current location and indicates the buses that service the stop and their arrival times. He then selects the route that he wishes to take and the app shows him a map of the route with the real time location of the bus. It also prompts him to start playing the BusCat game while he is waiting for the bus to arrive. Sebastian also begins to play BusCat.
Scene 4: him that he has arrived at his destination. On reading the notification, he gets up from his seat and proceeds to the door to exit when the bus comes to a halt at the bus stop.
Scene 5: Scene 5 begins with Ron walking away from the bus stop. The app has identified that his trip has ended and pushes a notification to his watch to indicate that. The notification also asks him to rate the trip. Ron proceeds to give his rating. The next step of the watch prompts Ron to open the app on the phone to give a detailed feedback with any additional comments or grievances. Ron enters some information and continues to walk towards his work place with a smile on his face.
Video :
System Proposal
BusCat is a service that automatically and seamlessly informs bus commuters of bus arrival times using location-aware technologies in order to provide a superior and anxiety-free commuting experience. BusCat also helps to build stronger bonds in the bus commuter community by providing a social gaming experience restricted to specific bus stops. This system proposal walks through how the service is architected and how it would function.
At its most basic, the system is comprised of the following:
- a smartphone app
- a smartwatch app (optional)
- a network of Bluetooth beacons deployed at all bus stops and on all buses
- the bus’s built-in GPS and cellular connectivity
- a display at the bus stop showing a real-time map of bus locations and game leaderboard, also with cellular connectivity
Here is a diagram of our system that maps out all these different elements and shows the connections between them:
Image 11: System Diagram
The smartphone app is the hub of the service and is what unlocks the value of the service. In the app the user can set up some basic parameters and settings on first launch; after that point, the app does not need much user intervention to be of value. A user can set certain bus stops and bus routes as “Favorites” – with this simple task accomplished, whenever the user passes in close proximity to a Favorited bus stop (within 30 feet or so) the Bluetooth beacon at the bus stop will wake up the app, which will fetch the current bus arrival times for the Favorited route and surface that information through a notification on the smartphone or smartwatch. At the same time, and without the user needing to intervene, the app communicates to the bus (through the smartphone’s data connection and the bus’ cellular data connection) to let the bus know a rider is waiting. At the appropriate time, as the bus approaches the stop, the bus will signal to the driver (through a tone) that a rider is waiting at the next stop (this feature is a particularly important one for visually impaired users who sometimes have the experience of the bus not stopping for them simply because they are not standing close enough to the bus stop sign).
To unlock even more value, the user can give the app access to the user’s calendar. If an event with an address is on the calendar, the BusCat app will send the user a notification that it’s time to get going (based on current travel times on the bus).
In the app the user can also set up certain predefined regions (Home, Work, etc.). based on geolocation and WiFi, and set up their normal commuting hours and days (e.g., Monday through Friday, 7am to 6pm). When the app senses the user is leaving one of these geofenced regions during their commuting hours, a notification will pop up on the smartphone or smartwatch asking them if they are about to start a trip. They can select the journey and the app will let them know when the next bus is coming (this is the scenario demonstrated in the demo video for Milestone 4). This is a summary of the pre-trip notifications available in BusCat.
Once the user is at the bus stop waiting for the bus, the BusCat experience continues. A display at the bus stop shows the current locations of the buses servicing that bus stop, which can be of use both to BusCat users and non-BusCat users. The display is connected to the Internet through a cellular data connection. A leaderboard is also displayed showing the highest ranking players for the in-app game. This leaderboard, and the game that is played at the stop, is restricted to BusCat users who use that stop and play the game there. The leaderboard is meant to incentivize continued playing of the BusCat game and to foster conversation among players. Finally, a QR code on the display also helps onboard new users who might not be familiar with BusCat.
Because the display is not interactive and does not need to be refreshed continually, even something like a large e-paper display might suffice in terms of fulfilling the tasks outlined above. An e-paper display would also have the benefit of being cheaper, have less glare, and perhaps be more durable, given that it will be outside and possibly subject to vandalism and harsh weather.
The game design itself is something we were not able to explore in-depth. But what’s important is that the game would have to be engaging, have transportation as a theme, and the competition would be restricted to BusCat users who use that stop. We have also considered the idea of custom-designing a game for each bus stop. Feedback from the demo presentation suggests that this might be infeasible given how many bus stops are in a bus system. But we feel that the exclusivity created by restricting the leaderboard to only those who play the game at that stop might be an important draw. It also means that it is more likely than any BusCat user’s name will appear on the leaderboard.
The purpose of the game is to not only kill time while waiting but also a) to encourage conversation and social interaction between riders at the bus stop, and b) to encourage daily usage of the app.
Once a bus arrives at the stop, a Bluetooth beacon placed on the bus lets the app know that the user is now on the bus. The app can then communicate this fact back to the server so that the real-time location of the bus can be confirmed and updated for other users (this functionality duplicates the GPS service on the bus – but on many bus systems the GPS coordinates are only refreshed every 5 minutes or so. With a high number of BusCat users, the bus’ geolocation service can be significantly improved). So long as the user is on the bus (and thus in contact with the Bluetooth beacon) the app will continue to send updates on the bus’ location.
A second important action that takes place once the bus arrives is that the user will be prompted if they would like to receive notifications at every stop the bus passes by (an important feature for visually impaired users) or if they just want a notification when their stop is coming up (a setting in the smartphone app could set either one of these as the default as well).
The smartwatch app for BusCat is a convenient but entirely optional part of the BusCat experience. Once a user has set up their settings in the smartphone app, everything but playing the game can take place on the smartwatch.
Discussion
Some of the questions that we were asked during the presentation of the demo prompted us to think and explain more elaborately about the rationales behind our design proposal and some specific scenarios where the design may need further adjustments.
First, we propose to use the smartwatch app as a complement to the smartphone app to send very short prompts and notifications to our users at those points when they leave for the bus or arrive at the bus stop or approach a bus stop while on the bus. With the rapid development of smartwatch technology and the increasing popularity of smartwatches among the public, we foresee that the bus notification system will integrate the smartwatch as one of its touchpoints in the near future in order to provide a less obtrusive and more efficient notification experience for bus riders. Instead of taking out their smartphones each time they want to check the pushed notifications, bus riders in the future can be notified by a tiny vibration or tap on their wrists and have a quick glance at their smartwatch to take in the most important information at the moment in a few seconds.
Based on the results from the formative study, most of the participants indicated that they would enjoy having some sort of social interaction with the people around them. Nowadays, at bus stops and in other public places, people are engrossed in their phones and have altogether stopped talking to one another. Hence, we decided to bring in a common factor that would drive people to socially interact with people around them in a bus stop. We have proposed the BusCat game as being this common factor, something that can serve as a conversation starting point among riders. The competitive aspect of the game and the public display of the leaderboard is intended to encourage continued use of the app. The fact that only riders who use that bus stop appear on the leaderboard should also help to build engagement and community-building.
Another thing we do want to pay more attention to is to ensure the notification experience on smartwatch or smartphone is unobtrusive and won’t disrupt users, e.g., it won’t force users to stop and look at the notification while walking on the street. We’ve decided that the prompts will only be pushed right at the moment when users are detected by Bluetooth beacons to leave their current location, arrive at a bus stop or sit on a bus. And users can preset their personal profile and frequent bus routes in the smartphone app so that in the future they can receive notifications pushed to them automatically.
Leveraging the idea of service design and the customer journey, we conceive a holistic bus information service system starting from the point when users leave their current location till the end of their bus trips. Smartwatch users, smartphone users, and even non-smartphone users (through the bus stop display) all have access to this system. We want to push the limits of technology yet still ensure that our design covers most of our target audience without forcing usage of any particular novel technology. We are envisioning a bus information system that is feasible using current technologies and scalable to accommodate more user groups and incorporate emerging technologies within the upcoming 5 years.
Technically, it is quite difficult to set up digital displays at all the bus stops in the Ann Arbor area. It would require a huge budget and requesting permissions from various authorities. However, taking a leaf out of the book of the M-Bus who have set up displays at major bus stops, we envision that this feature can be implemented over the next few years in phases. Since the displays are not interactive, we do not need to use a touchscreen, and perhaps even a large e-paper display would suffice. An e-paper display would have the benefit of not having issues with glare from the sun, being cheaper, and it might make for a less tempting target for vandals.
From a usability standpoint, most riders in the Ann Arbor area are familiar with smartphones, mobile applications, and notifications, and hence they would be easily able to make sense and access the information that is being provided to them. The digital displays at the bus stops are simple to read, non-interactive and self explanatory, and so should not pose a problem to users. From a social standpoint, the gaming aspect and the leaderboard displayed on the screen will create a riders’ community and will facilitate some interactions within this community. Riders will arrive to the bus stop and will see familiar names on the board, compete with each other, and maybe talk to each other to get to know the top players in this small community of commuters.
In terms of social issues, although our system has tried to be as democratic as possible by providing current bus information to all users, it is true that without a smartphone you would not be able to compete in the game. The more time passes, however, the cheaper smartphones get, until eventually even the cheapest phone will be a smartphone rather than a feature phone.
Conclusion
The system we have devised serves the very real needs of bus riders, which we learned about through our formative studies. Through the user enactments we figured out the right frequency and kinds of notifications users would find desirable, and we also learned that a gaming aspect to the service was very welcome. Visually impaired riders were initially considered a primary audience for the service and then shifted to being a secondary audience because of recruiting issues with users – nevertheless, the service is built in such a way that their experience with bus commuting will be vastly improved. A visually impaired user can just walk up to a stop and immediately know how long they have to wait. They have the added peace of mind of knowing the bus driver has been notified and do not have to worry that the bus will drive by them just because they are not standing right next to the stop. And while riding the bus, they can be aware of the bus’ current location through the fine-grained notifications available to them if they choose to receive them.
BusCat can provide a much better commuting experience to riders with special needs and to the general riding public. With the effects of global warming becoming clearer every day, public transportation needs to have every advantage it can get. BusCat can not only make public transportation more appealing to regular commuters and people considering commuting, it can also help strengthen social ties to build a stronger community of bus riders.