A transit system is as usable as its wayfinding system. To understand how easy or difficult it is to travel by PMPML buses, we asked five first-time users to make a trip by the bus, unassisted. We observed their journey and interviewed them after they finished the trip to understand their experience and the challenges they faced.
Using a qualitative methodology including unstructured interviews and observational data the study identified the pain points in PMPML's wayfinding experience and the scope for improvement. To date, this study would be one of the very few evaluations of the wayfinding experience of public transit services in India.
It would be interesting to understand and analyse the wayfinding experience of first-time users on a larger scale with a diverse group of participants and understand whether it significantly impacts their decision to patronise the bus system or not. There is also scope for researchers to conduct audits of what wayfinding tools already exist and how they can be improved using participatory methods, for example, Maps on bus stops, apps that exist, etc.
Parisar hosted a webinar with panelists: Ranjit Gadgil, Yogesh Dandekar and Tejas Pande. The discussion centred around improving the bus transport system in Pune in the aspects of communication, design, network, infrastructure and behaviour. View the recording to the webinar here.
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