Wayfinding for a network nobody could navigate

Tern Transit inherited its network from three merged operators, and it showed: four signage systems, route numbers that changed mid-journey, and a passenger app with a 2.1-star rating. Ridership surveys kept returning the same finding — people weren't avoiding the bus, they were avoiding the uncertainty.

We designed the system from the bus stop backwards. Every route was redrawn as a straightened diagram; every stop got a name, a number, and a code that works in print, on screen, and over the phone. The visual language is deliberately loud — oversized numerals, hard arrows, black on white with a single warning yellow — because a wayfinding system read at 40 metres in the rain has no use for subtlety.

The app applies the same logic. One screen, one question: when is my bus actually coming. Live departures lead; journey planning follows; everything else is two taps deep at most. We wrote the accessibility spec first and designed inside it, rather than auditing at the end.

Complaints mentioning wayfinding or route confusion fell by a fifth within two quarters of the rollout. The app climbed from 2.1 to 4.5 stars, and — the metric the operations team cares about — calls to the depot asking where a bus stops dropped enough that they reassigned a staff role.