Included in Skytrain opening days has been the inability of the automatic ticket dispensing machine (ATDM) machines to work efficiently. I will define what I mean efficient as —an ATDM that collects the fares from potential users that have no experience using the ticketing systems or transit so that they are not put into any level of anxiety. Is that to much to ask? Bad design is abusive.

The failure of these transit systems to meet their obligations in creating a worry free transit system for their patrons discourages the new transit rider. The transit authorities also undermine their own credibility of providing efficient transportation, they have set the ground for a rough corporate ride when it could be smooth sailing. Why do these corporate blunders occur.

To try to understand the poor signage maybe it would help if we used the other term for signage and that is Wayfinding. Why the change?

Not to be smerky, but it is just as it sounds, how do I find my way around here —Wayfinding.

As a graphic design student some 30+ years ago I learnt what I needed to know about designing for finding our way. Those lessons were not the exact solutions to solve the Wayfinding challenge but in knowing how to put yourself into the users experience. I will also add at this time that Wayfinding is not restricted to the physical space but it also includes the virtual electron digital space that we inhabit from time to time. The same rules apply! Wayfinding solution are not only graphic solutions, its understanding the environment and the user. These are two elementary basic rules that were ignored in the recent opening of the BC Transit’s Canada Line.

I was fortunate to experience the Canada Line on a recent return trip from Montreal, day two of its operation. On arrival at YVR there was a little confusing in finding the actual station. On a previous trip I had previously mistakenly took some construction inside near front of the terminal as the station. After squinting at some airport signage I was able to find the escalator up to the SkyTrain level. The issue here is how do you inform users to change perception of the SkyTrains operation. This is a constant issue when bus routes change and only small poorly worded 8 X 10 signs are use to announce changes. In most cases these important signs are obscured by other patrons.

As I already had a one zone ticket I did not have to use the automatic ticket dispensing machine (ATDM). I had to wait for the second SkyTrain because I wanted to take advantage of the reduced price after 6:30. From what I have been reading the design of these machines are wanting.

• Why would you design a feedback mechanism of light that are obscured from the users line of sight?
• Why would you have an arbitrary time limit to remove your credit cards?
• Why wasn’t the reading of credit cards backward compatible?
• Why aren’t there onscreen notification of what currency will work in the machines?
• Why aren’t there multi-lingual instructions on the screens or have we forgotten that Canada is a bilingual country?

These ATDM’s have a large screen area and could be better designed to give the information the tired traveler needs and ensure them they are going in the right directions. BC SkyTrain Transit’s Canada Line is not the only new system to have major design flaws in their ATDMs. Seattle’s new Sound Transit Link light rail has also had ticket problems, again issues that could have been designed out of the system. Is it cheeper to fix or design the system properly in the first place.

Why must transit systems now relearn the wayfinding issues that befell Washington’s DC’s system back in 1978. Has the general public been conditioned now to accept shoddy design systems. Have we been conditioned by our use of software and computer hardware to accept that the first version maybe good but full of bugs? Are we conditioned for to second best in services. We know our patronage is important at least that is what we are told by the recording when we phone for information. But really as an individual are we really important to the success of the system?

Why is it so difficult to use established design principle tried and tested in previous decades that work? The only reason that I can come up with is that top management does not understand the value in quality design nor understand how their patrons us the system. Have the transit corporations been blinded by all the eye candy we’ve been subjected to as design?

Wayfinding also include those announcements that we hear or do not hear when we travel the on SkyTrain. How clear are they? Are they designed to create and informed rider or to create an anxious rider. The announcements on my initial ride into Vancouver was very misleading and confusing. I can imagine how someone who’s mother tongue was not English or hard of hearing would get confused and frustrated. The first message said that the SkyTrain would go to the Waterfront Station then a garbled,  statically message corrected the first message and said it would only go as far as the Bridgeport station. Surely a switch should be installed to give the SkyTrain cars the specific message that it needs in an quality audio tone. The audio messaging problem is not a new issue for SkyTrain as a whole operation the audio messaging system is poorly design. It is a situation that SkyTrain has been made aware off before.

It was fortunate that once on the SkyTrain I knew where I was going as the signage at the stations was very difficult to find. We should ask why every station had a lack of individual identity in which to differentiate each station. This can still be accomplished when the upgrade to signage is done. My destination was Yaletown. It was not clear how to exit and to what side of the street one would come to the surface at. Finding an elevator and squeezing into it with another passenger and their luggage and a rider and bicycle we were a tight threesome.

What was  one of the biggest surprises in the system was the lack of bus connection at this station. The cabs seemed amenable to help out an tie up the traffic if I had wanted to take advantage of them. But no bus connection what happened here? When a flight attendant  phoned BC Transit when using Yaletown as his station to go to the airport he was told he would best to go to Waterfront Station. If the transit official continue to give out this kind of advice to all who are going to the airport is there a risk that the small Canada Line SkyTrain will fill up at Waterfront with passengers and their luggage or is this the design of the airport spur of Canada Line?

There are obviously many Wayfinding issue with the new Canada Line it is a new system, and there are also things that work. I will cover what works in a later blog, when I find them.