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How (not) to prevent people from using bus lanes
(This is a post by guest blogger Paul Adams, who I introduced here. -mh)
Many cities have bus lanes i.e. traffic lanes that only buses can travel in. This is to quicken the bus journey in times of heavy traffic and promote the bus as an attractive mode of transport. Most bus lanes have hours of operation, usually peak traffic times.
Some frustrated commuters in cars often use the bus lane to take a few minutes off their journey and manoeuvre to the front of the traffic jam. I'm sure we've all seen it!
In Manchester (UK), the local city council installed moving bollards to prevent commuters in cars from using bus lanes. They tried to change people’s behaviour, with catastrophic results:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEbmJi3ROKk
Understanding people’s real behaviour and motivations is crucial to good design. In most cases, good design should support people’s natural behaviour, not try to change it. In other cases, it is important to understand people’s decision making processes. If a police car was parked on the roadside at the end of the bus lane, no commuters in cars would use the bus lane.
