bachelor of design computing & master of interaction design and ...

Tamara Chahine
What the bus, 2011
Mobile application
This project explores ways of improving the
experience of public transport in Sydney
through commuter-led eorts. Sharing and
visualising data about the performance of
transport services can potentially aid designers,
researchers or government bodies in deigning
more informed transport solutions that adapt to
the way services are actually used by commuters
in Sydney.
‘What the bus’ (www.wtbus.net) is a mobile
application designed to allow commuters to
share information about the performance of
their buses in Sydney. The application allows
users to easily contribute information about the
location, lateness and fullness of their buses
while they wait.
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This information is then combined with
existing timetable information and fed back to
commuters in a number of dierent ways: first,
by enabling users to view real-time reports
about their buses; and second, in the form of
various data visualisations.
The project also explores what the aggregation
and visualisation of this crowd-sourced data
can reveal about buses in Sydney, but also
commuter’s own travel habits. For every bus
route in Sydney, the application creates a ‘profile’
of performance, which can help commuters
make more informed travel decisions. As well as
this, the application allows users to reflect on a
history of their personal travel habits.
Honours: What the bus,
HTML5 and Sencha Touch.