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The back door of the low entry articulated "New Flyer" buses do not seem to work well. People push or stand or do something and the back door does not seem to open, then as the bus is pulling away the panicked rider yells "Back Door!", the bus stops with a jerk and the whole rigamarole starts again.
So what is with the back door on the New Flyer? The back door green light comes on then there seems to be a several second delay on opening after pushing on the door, but it also seems to need a specific area to push to get the door to respond. What is on the door is a two inch wide, three foot long yellow strip above the waist along the center edge of each bi-valve door that says "Touch here (little hand graphic) to open door." The "hand graphic" is of two small thumb size hands that I never noticed before this week. In my mind that meant push anywhere on the yellow strip before the little hands were pointed out to me by a fellow bus rider. Now I think that you are supposed to push on the little teeny tiny hands. But the door still does not give immediate feedback or respond right away.
The bus bike rack is great, I love it and use it. But I forgot when I first tried it out, it was on a low traffic route on a Saturday and the driver had to assist me. Last week as I watched some hapless soul try to load his bike for obviously the first time during rush hour on a standing room only bus it all came back to me. The driver pantomime through the window, the encouraged but confused looks, the bike this way, then that way, finally after several minutes the bus driver exiting the bus to show the citizen the correct bike rack usage, the chagrined rider boarding the bus after about a 3 minute delay. Does it have to be this hard?
Each of the above problems, the back door and the bike rack are small in themselves, but when combined with many other small usability problems the system becomes difficult to use and frustrating for everyone. A couple extra stops to open the back door and a confounded bike rack user delayed the schedule that day and if anything else happened then I would have missed my transit connections and transit stops working for me.
When there are usability problems please fix them, try a different approach to the bike rack instructions and back door instructions and test the methods of conveying the information on some actual people. For the back door issues I suggest testing bigger brighter hand graphics where you need to push and fewer words, like "Open Door" or just "Open" and some sort of immediate response, like another light for pushing the door correctly, or better yet actually opening the door, the delay of several seconds for a response is a confusing disconnect of consciousness; people need immediate feedback.
For the bike rack instructions I also suggest more pictures such as a picture of how to orient the bike on the rack on the rack bottom plate, as it is now it is too much for novice users to figure out a slightly complex bicycle rack when standing in front of the bus during rush hour and feeling pressure to put a bike on the rack quickly and get on the bus. Just more wordy instructions will probably not do the trick. Testing diagrams or instructions on people cannot hurt and almost certainly will improve the situation.
The transit system is made up of many small interactions, when many of them are clumsy and confusing then there is friction in the system that may be the source of more problems like schedule delays, unhappy riders, more work burden for drivers, maybe even safety problems. When the the system is usable and works people tend to not notice, it is like breathing air, things just happen and the system flows. So fix the many small things to make the whole system better.