Lisbon City Council already has a real-time bus information screen in operation. The problem is this: there is only one.
TO ENTER
If you’ve ever ridden a bus in other countries, you know that there is good predictability as to when one will arrive. You can usually get to a shelter, see in real time how many minutes the bus is there and wait. But in Lisbon this doesn’t happen.
Anyone who wants to know where a bus is in real time in Lisbon has to install apps. Be it the official ones or a very useful one that I recently discovered called Transit and available for Android and iOS. But not all bus users, especially older ones, constantly carry their smartphone in their hand.
New screens show real-time bus information
In some cases, what we saw more than 20 years ago were very analog signs that worked poorly with information about upcoming buses. Lisbon City Council finally decided to invest in screens that show real-time bus information, with estimated arrival times provided by Carris.
The problem is that the announcement was made only for a shelter on Av. de Campo Grande. What about the rest of the network? What would make sense would be for these screens to be spread across most of the shelters in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area with the information that users of this network need and then an announcement to be made. Because anyone who rides the bus in Lisbon – or in any other city – needs predictability.
Basically, those who ride the bus just need to have the same level of predictability as the subway train, where this information is available as soon as you arrive at the station. And let’s face it, there is a lot of room to improve the way information is presented on these screens.
At the top we see the Carris, CML logo, the time and temperature in large dimensions. But the various buses arriving are smaller. There is a priority here and that is knowing when the buses arrive. Therefore, and especially for those with reduced visibility, this information must be in larger dimensions. We will see what the next steps are for this measure.
We remind you that since the end of last year it has been possible to request the Navegante Card online in a simple way. In Porto, it is now possible to pay contactless on buses.
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