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Bus stops, social networking platforms?

Posted Mar 29, 2010

Uttering the words "social networking" and "bus stops" in the same sentence would seem highly unlikely, but MIT's latest brainchild Eyestop has us doing just that. Find out how EyeStop is changing our perception of public transit.  

Bus stops now a days host city maps, less than comfortable seating, expected bus time arrivals, and sometimes bus timetables which usually are in desperate need of updating, but what about a platform for social networking? MIT SENSEable City Lab developed a new bus stop concept, EyeStop. Apart from having a eye-pleasing futuristic design, EyeStop serves many useful functions like the ability to check your email, monitor the real-time exposure to pollutants, plan your route home on the interactive map, and more importantly tells you the exact location of that bus that you're waiting for.

Interactive city information

The EyeStop is mostly covered with touch-sensitive e-INK and screens, and features state-of-the art sensing technologies. The most interesting interactive service provided by EyeStop is its digital communication option: riders can use their mobile devices as an interface with the bus shelter. They can also post ads and community announcements to an electronic bulletin board at the bus stop, rendering the EyeStop as a community gathering space. The MIT SENSEable City Lab share their hopes for EyeStop:

"The EyeStop could change the whole experience of urban travel. At the touch of a finger, passengers can get the shortest bus route to their destination or the position of all the buses in the city. The EyeStop will also glow at different levels of intensity to signal the distance of an approaching bus. EyeStop is like an ‘info-tape’ that snakes through the city. It senses information about the environment and distributes it in a form accessible to all citizens. Since the Renaissance, there has been an interplay between the physical form of the city (urb) and its citizenship (civitas). Today’s technologies are adding new possibilities to that age-long relationship, thanks to the addition of digital information to physical space. It is as if a new materiality were emerging in architecture, with the seamless blending of bits and atoms."

If bus stops looked and functioned like the Eyestop concept, the public transit system would surely see an astonishing increase in precentage of riders and roads wouldn't be so congested with vehicles. The future is looking like an open road in digital communications.

 

Source & Photo credits: MIT,  Design You Trust

 

TAGS: eyestop mit bus stop buses transportation transit concept design social networking online magazine

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