Touring Gothenburg

I found the entire system professional in appearance and slick and accurate in operation. It certainly enabled me to experience carefree travelling throughout the city. All the information required was provided at every stop and interchange I visited along my convoluted routes with each stop having its own distinct and visible identity adding to this in no small way.

The quality of the transport system of Gothenburg owes much to Gotic's research and attention to detail. Mentioned earlier are the LED signs used around the bus and tram network and the fact that even the typeface was a critical aspect of the design. Recommendations for real-time information on monitors and displays forms a whole separate research document that focuses on, amongst other things, passengers' perceptions of information provided and colour combinations versus ease of use.

The best design, identified as a result of research, is currently installed throughout the network and appear in this report. Red on black LED style signs have been evaluated as the most effective, although several technologies could have been used for the Gotic application including electromechanical bi-stable signs, vacuum fluoridising and liquid crystal displays. A separate paper on the subject has been published by Gotic and can be obtained from them. Called "Sign of the Times" it assists with the various parameters to be considered to enable signs to be both read, and understood, easily. The four lines of thirty-five characters allow enough room for sufficient separate arrivals, plus room for these to be replaced with delay and incident information. Ideal signage as a result of a meticulous design process

A key part of the design is not to encourage too much information to be displayed. The lines of arrival data contain three key components: route number, destination and estimated time of arrival. As you can see, each one of these components is constructed slightly differently and is therefore easily recognisable as opposed to the entire event being laid out either as a standard sentence or each component the same typeface and colour. The route identifiers are bold and inverted so that they appear black on red and ultimately stand out. They also form arrows pointing to the rest of the information for extra clarity, as if it was needed anyway. The information is designed from the perspective of how passengers search for information. This is what the Gotic projects highlight nicely, and it seems that no compromises were made in any part of the design. Among the tools used to aid the public transport companies in identifying passenger needs and current deficiencies, Gotic have developed quite a comprehensive check list for transport providers to complete, as an initial step. It covers such areas as distinguishing transit information from that provided by other advertisers and the uniformity of information. The checklist forms part of the report entitled "Three Aspects on Public Transport Passenger Information" and is available from Gotic for a small fee.

Of course passengers were involved with group discussions to enable Gotic to improve the quality of travel around the city. Further in-depth interviews were also carried out with certain passengers, forming, according to Gotic, a vital part of the design process. Results of such actions discovered that travellers just need to know exactly when to be at the stop for their journey, an easy to understand premise. Gotic are working to provide as close to these "personal timetables" as possible by connecting the vehicle detection systems to prediction algorithms and various information outlets.

Other projects have focused on supplementary information devices such as message phones and Internet. Again these have been subject to quality research by Gotic. One text messaging service allowed passengers to get information about the next two departures from any stop on any line, while another separate service provides warnings about delays on specific routes on the network. This service is linked to a web site to allow users to tag the required service, they are then automatically contacted if there is any pertinent information. Voice services also form part of the on going research to determine whether such a service should be activated via touch-tone phone operation or indeed utilise technologies such as voice recognition.

Coupled with this, it was highlighted that there had to be an improvement in the process of buying tickets. Among the advantages in this are reduced waiting times at busy stops when boarding actually commences. Having the single company Västtrafik responsible for the network has enabled a very flexible ticketing method to be commissioned. Several journeys can be purchased in a single transaction at several outlets across the city. Each journey then results in the passenger entering the ticket into one of several electronic read / writer machines installed in each vehicle. A different journey type can be selected for juniors, elderly travellers or other concessions. The ticket is then time and date stamped and the remaining balance printed on the ticket.

Although this is in many ways an ideal way to travel, it does, however, rely rather heavily on the honesty of the passenger to have their ticket franked. Gotic is in place to evaluate such systems before mass deployment takes place and in this case had to juxtapose the convenience to passengers with economic viability for the company. This ticketing system seems to be a success and the simplified system can lead to increased patronage and therefore higher profits for the transit company.

Plans for further improvements to the Gotic system on the street include new designs for static information signs for proposed installation at major stops on the network. Instead of single or double sided display boards, similar to those installed at Hjalmer Brantingsplatsen and Frölunda Torg etc. There were plans to install a new design boasting four sides of static information relevant to the particular stop. These could also accommodate electronic monitors if necessary.

Scale models of such signs have already been produced to help fine tune and finalise the design.

Gotic representatives regularly demonstrate the benefits of their approaches to conferences across Europe and other cities are already looking at Gothenburg's methods when considering intelligent transport systems themselves. With the assistance of Anders in touring around Gothenburg, I have seen plenty of ideas for U.K. cities to take note of.

My sincere thanks go to Anders Kåbjörn and Daniel Ulfheden at Trafik Kontoret