A person who wanders aimlessly in a city, purely for pleasure, is called a flaneur. But we should be open to the possibilities of extending this experience with public transport.
Last month, on a Sunday morning during my UK trip, I set out from my rented flat in Birmingham to wander the central city. It was very early, so to the extent that I had an objective it was to find the earliest-to-open place that served decent coffee. But I stumbled upon an especially beautiful old rail station: Birmingham Moor Street.
Curious, I went in, only to discover that there was an express train leaving soon for Stratford-upon-Avon, famous as the home of William Shakespeare.
Shakespeare hadn’t been on my mind that morning at all, but he consumed a decade of my life long ago, and I still have plenty of reverence for him. So I got on the train and had a pleasant several hours wandering in Stratford.
Most people, at most times, aren’t acting out of this kind of leisure. Mostly we have places to be. But this accident reminded me again of why trip planning software can never replace maps, good signage, and a range of other visual signals. I had no intention to go to Stratford until I discovered the possibility. I would not have responded to a message on the internet suggesting I go to Stratford, because this would have been either a generic ad — which I’d ignore because it’s generic — or an astute suggestion based on a deep knowledge of my interests — which I’d welcome from a human but ignore, because it’s creepy and invasive, if it came from a machine.
(In this am I admitting my age? I grew up at a time when you looked to the physical world for information, and while I can certainly use the internet my first instinct is always to look about me. But if this were so unusual, why do British city centers invest so much in wayfinding — maps and signs designed not to give us direction but to show us possibilities? People do not travel in order to stare at their phones.)
So it’s interesting, too, that British buses often advertise themselves in a way that I’ve never seen in North America outside of specialized tourist services. While bus operators have a generic bus they can assign to any route, in Birmingham and Cardiff I’ve noticed buses branded to a particular route, prominently advertising its frequency and a sequence of destinations. I see this bus and think “I could go to [place] from here, every 7 minutes.” I might remember that. Even wandering the city as a flaneur, I might respond to one of these buses just as I might respond to an interesting alley or byway. Oh, I could go there right now, and now that you mention it, I think I will.
Railway stations have masses of potential advertising space where passengers will happily read information about train services and connecting bus routes. Most commercial businesses are keen to onsell another related service, but public transport operators don’t seem to think that way. One of the few cities that does this well is Perth, Australia. At many of their train stations there is comprehensive information about connecting bus routes including maps and timetables.
Please make sure your advertising is honest. I few years back my family missed our connection flight in Denver as was forced to spend a day in the city. With nothing else to do we got on the train and started riding until we heard the announcement “next stop central park” which sounded like a great place to take the kids so we got off. Only after the train left did we discover that central park is not in walking distance of the station named for it. I suppose we could have found a bus/transfer to get there, but as tourists by the time we found a schedule and figured out which bus they would have left. (we did find a small neighborhood park that was just barely in walking distance so not all was lost)
As Auckland has a hop card for tagging on and off I was fairly easily able to get the number iof cards used once a month used twice a month etc. It showed 70percent of all trips were by people with 20 trips a month. With more effort you could look at are these work time commutes etc.
How you use this info is the tricky part. More services for high users or more to get new users? So not a definite answer , but more a tool to use. In New Zealand it was free under Official Information Act.