If there is one thing that can ruin a perfectly good morning (or be the cherry on top of a long day), it's when you're waiting for the train or the bus, and when one finally pulls up, the current occupants won't move to accomodate more people. If only the current riders would squeeze in a little more, a handful of people wouldn't have to wait for that next train or bus. And no, I'm not asking for this.
It's always the same spots: near the ends of the train car, or towards the back of the bus. Sometimes, in a weirdly ironic twist, a seat will be left open because nobody wants to take it, deferring to someone else who might need it. That's awful chivalrous, but also wasted space.
And I get it: people want their own personal space. They've come from their apartment or home where they have relative freedom of movement, and they are going to a place of work where they probably have their own space as well, so why not in between? And as mentioned previously, it is early in the morning and they're fresh and clean or it's been a long day and they don't want to be pressed up against another person.
It's also a matter of location convenience. If a person knows she will be getting off in four stops, she probably doesn't want to position herself in a spot where she is going to have to maneuver around multiple people to exit. So she may stand closer to an exit. What is the threshold, though, for someone getting off 'soon?' Five stops or less? More? I must admit: I do this. If my stop is five stops or less or 10 minutes away, I will stand near the exit. I will do everything I can to move so people can get off or go around me. I'd rather do that then try to snake my way out 5-10 bodies deep from the middle of the train/bus.
As a keen observer of CTA/train politics/logistics, what ends up happening is that those standing often congregate near the exits. Maybe it's because they want to disturb the least amount of people when getting out, maybe they like to be near the door in the unlikely event of an emergency, maybe because it offers the most room (at least initially). Whatever the reason, crowds tend to form around the exits and not spread out down the aisles.
Finally, it's about empathy. When someone secures a spot on the train or the bus, the stress and anxiety of finding a spot quickly evaporates. It doesn't always transfer over to thinking about how to accomodate others. Even if someone was just in that position a few minutes ago, again, getting ready for a full day of work or winding down from one, sometimes empathy for the fellow rider gets deprioritized. We're dealing with an empathy gap here.
How quickly we forget the last time we were frantically looking for room and someone squeezed for us! How often we forget to pay it forward! But it happens. This certianly isn't the behavior of all people, but it's a pretty common occurrence: the 56 Milwaukee bus pulls up at Grand/Halsted/Milwaukee in the morning with riders shoulder-to-shoulder with the bus driver and nobody moves. Crestfallen, you check your phone for the next bus arrival. Then as the bus pulls away, you see there's room for at least three people in the back of that bus.
Every time I've thought about the design implications of this, I come back to the same thing: we have to design for the cowpaths. I've thought about the seating arrangement on New York train cars that maximize space by having the seats along the wall face in, but we have train cars in Chicago arranged like that and it doesn't completely solve the problem. They may provide more standing room, but they don't fully address the cowpaths. People still congregate near exits, choose their location based on convenience, and have a lack of empathy.
Before jumping to any design solutions, there's a lot more research to be done. First of all, can I back up my observations quantitatively and qualitatively? It will also help to find where the research has already been done (see articles in Fast Company and Vox). A competitive analysis of subway cars/buses would be informative. What new issues arise and need to be anticipated with those new designs?
Before going back to school and getting a Masters of Science in HCI, I considered urban planning because I was fixated on solving this problem. Funny how I found my way back to it, albeit via a different route (no pun intended). It is my dream to come up with a successful design - I've got my work cut out for me.
