Okay, this page contains a few personal opinions from me and others as to what goes into making a good bus stop sign. Here are a few things necessary to a good bus stop sign.
Visibility - The sign must be visible to both driver and passengers in all conditions. This can be achieved by one of several means, the easiest is color. Making a sign the
same color of all the other signs in the area means they won't stand out very well. SCCTD/SCVTA has used two different color ideas. The first was mainly a blue sign. These stand out well during the day, bat can be hard to see at night. They then went to a white sign which stood out well at night, but got lost among the speed limit and no parking signs during the day. They currently use a blue sign with very reflective white letters and numbers.
Visibility can also be achieved by making the sign larger than most other signs. Several districts including CCAT (Central Coast Area Transit) and Atascadero Transit use this with some success.
Paso Robles uses a nice looking sign but it isn't very visible since it has the look and feel of all the other direction signs in town.
In one change of VTA signs, a test was actually conducted at several locations in the field by putting both color schemes in similar locations near each other. A survey of the drivers on the routes
going by the signs was then done asking which colors they preferred. During the day, over 75% preferred the blue signs, while at night it was only around 50%. During that change the blue signs
were chosen. The next time the signs were changed they were made primarily white, which generated many complaints from the drivers. For the next change, there were no complaints when a blue sign
was again chosen. Click here for a brief history of VTA Signs. Signs should be visible as a bus stop sign from both front and rear, remember about half the passengers
approach most stops from the rear of the sign. There are several ways this can be addressed. Here are a couple from Lake Transit and from SCVTA.  This is the back of an SCVTA sign. You can clearly see that this is a bus stop sign. 
This is the back of a Lake Transit sign. This is a common way of marking signs that are mounted centered on the pole rather then to one side. Information
- The signs should convey the following pieces of information. Who uses the stop, this is especially important when more then one district serves the stop. I know of one
stop in Palo Alto, California, that is served by 5 different agencies/services. SamTrans, the Dumbarton
Express, the Palo Alto City Shuttle, the Stanford University Marguerite, and Santa Clara VTA. There are only three different signs as the DB, Palo Alto City Shuttle and VTA all use the same sign.
Route Information, knowing which routes serve a stop is important, especially where stops are separated by
route, or serve the same intersection. Walking into a transit center with 10 different stops could be a mess if
you didn't know which route stops where. At the minimum, there should be a route number on the sign, the destination can also be useful where routes serve transit centers going both ways.
Phone Number, having the information number on the sign can be useful for visitors or occasional riders. Cars still break down forcing people to ride the bus or trains. 
This sign is visible, has the route information, and schedule information for the two routes which serve this stop. S.L.O. Transit's signs are almost all of this style. Optional Information
Stop Number, some systems have automated phone systems that provide information based on individual stops, or a series of stops. Below is an example of this from Ottawa Canada. 
Route Map, some systems put a map of the route on the sign, this is nice for the passenger, but can be very expensive if the system has a lot of routes or makes frequent routing changes.
Clarity A bus stop sign must be recognizable as such, for both the drivers and the passengers. If people cannot tell what a sign is they may not know where to wait.
Information on a sign must be presented in a clear and concise manner. Putting too much information on a sign can be just as bad as not enough. |
