Tyrone Pardue

Call me odd, but I have a fetish for great public transit branding.

Yes, I have to admit that inter-modal branding, signage and vehicle livery design just does something for me. I know – it’s weird, but then I am a designer. By nature we designers seek to integrate, clarify and communicate. So when I travel on nicely integrated public transit systems that help me to move easily between one mode of transport and another—systems like London, Berlin, Tokyo and New York—I just get shamelessly excited.

But sadly, I have discovered that for the majority of systems, unfriendliness, confusing information, inconsistency and lack of cooperation between operators is the norm. These problems are exacerbated by the demands to provide more services in an environment where passengers are expecting predictable standards of comfort, accessibility, reliability, frequency and efficiency. They fail to see that passengers are confused by integration and want clarity. Passengers want to see their public transit operators buying into a set of common standards based on their needs and wants. They are looking for a common narrator to guide them from one mode of transit to the next – seamlessly.

There are many points of view when it comes to providing an effective, integrated public transit system. Politicians, operators, engineers, architects and environmentalists all have their own and sometimes oppositional points of view. Unfortunately, many of these perspectives don’t acknowledge what I believe is the most important element of all – the passengers themselves. The resulting communications breakdown is a major barrier to increased public transit usage.

Despite universal acknowledgment that integration is the way forward for public transit, competing interests, old rivalries and territorialism between operators and operating divisions within public transit companies present the biggest threat to successful integration. Much work has yet to be done to build the internal consensus, motivation and will within public transit organizations to do the necessary.

This is where, quite literally, a picture needs to be drawn, to visualize fully what integration means, to trace the passenger’s journey, to encounter and overcome the obstacles, to clarify how information is provided, and to ease movement through the environment.

It is remarkable how graphic images from simple diagrams and maps to slick 3-D animations that include walk throughs and fly-overs enable the viewer to see the concept working in virtual reality. Of course, vision is about more than visualization. It is about a compelling idea that, once communicated well and grasped by the audience, becomes the raison d’être for the brand development and implementation that follows.

Common branding, easy to read printed information, and understandable signage are just the basic requirements for passengers to be truly convinced that integration is a reality– something that can’t easily be achieved without the adoption of a common brand for ‘interchange’. For some people, traveling on an integrated public transit system presents a challenge. Confusion, frustration, embarrassment, and anger are often the results of poor communications design. Even passengers familiar with traveling on public transit find themselves challenged as services are integrated and new systems replace the old.

For example, interchanges are pivotal to the success of any integrated network. The concept is flawed in its implementation if passengers cannot transfer smoothly and seamlessly between services at these hubs. So attention must be paid to every detail. When things go wrong, as they so often do in public transit, communication becomes of paramount importance. Usually the small details (such as an ambiguous message on a sign, or an incorrect placing of an arrow) can lead to big problems for passengers.

For many operators, the cultural change necessary for their organization to make the shift to seeing through the eyes of the passenger from being mainly operations-centric will be difficult. Operators used to judging performance in terms of safety, reliability, and financial return now have additional and less familiar criteria to deal with as they learn about getting the details right in branding, design, information, and customer interface, without losing the big vision. Taking all these issues into consideration will soon be recognized as a vital key to make integration work for the passenger.

This new perspective can help establish consumer trust in a transport network and make the difference between success and failure in the relentless drive towards integration.