Comment by sfink
21 hours ago
Yes. As long as we're looking for relatively easy or cheap improvements, I believe that UX is a huge one. Buses have a long tradition of user-hostile design. "Exact change only", unhelpful and condescending and impatient drivers, unwritten etiquette rules, and everything else you listed.
It has always baffled me why they make it so hard for first-time users in particular. Sure, they mostly care about the regular customers who make up 99% of their passengers, but everyone has to be a first-timer before they can be a long-timer. It's not just UX papercuts, the experience seems designed to be maximally hostile. Is it because one more marginal person is a little more delay, a little more crowding, etc? It feels like there are perverse incentives at work.
> Buses have a long tradition of user-hostile design. "Exact change only"...
On every pay-in-cabin bus I've ever ridden, this is synonymous with "No change given". The machines are quite happy to accept more money than is needed for a single ticket, and the reason for that is pretty obvious.
> It has always baffled me why they make it so hard for first-time users in particular.
The SFMTA (the San Francisco bus/train operator) provides a document that addresses almost everything you brought up. [0] The "unhelpful and condescending and impatient drivers" thing isn't addressed, but I've never run into a Muni driver that was anything but helpful. [3] As an added bonus, the most useful information about fares is posted on the paybox inside the bus.
[0] <https://www.sfmta.com/getting-around/muni/how-ride-muni-quic...> (via [1])
[1] <https://www.sfmta.com/visitors> (via [2])
[2] <https://www.sfmta.com>
[3] Granted, sometimes that help is "I don't know where that is, but I know you can't get to it on this line.".
>> Buses have a long tradition of user-hostile design. "Exact change only"...
> On every pay-in-cabin bus I've ever ridden, this is synonymous with "No change given". The machines are quite happy to accept more money than is needed for a single ticket, and the reason for that is pretty obvious....the most useful information about fares is posted on the paybox inside the bus
That's fair, but (1) when I was a kid and starting out riding a bus, I didn't know that; and (2) as that same kid, neither my family nor I had very much money at all and paying "extra" for something is just not something you do. Consider it a cultural thing. "inside the bus" is good but insufficient when I'm deciding between walking a mile or chancing the bus that I don't understand. (I almost always walked the mile. I was cheap, and I hated looking stupid in front of unsympathetic people.)
As for Muni, I didn't live where I could use it until I was no longer that kid. But adult me fully agrees with you. My experience with Muni has been much better than with most other busses I've used.