Redesigning the Clock to...

The problem with public transport is this: it’s awesome until you miss it by 30 seconds and have to wait another 20 minutes in the cold.

The Problem Nobody Asked Me to Solve (Or Maybe I Did?)

The reason why I missed my bus was not that the schedule was complicated. It was simply that looking up the bus schedule involved too many steps:

  1. Pull out phone
  2. Open transit app
  3. Wait for it to load
  4. Do mental math “Okay, the bus arrives at 8:15, and then I have to walk 5 minutes. So I have to leave at. 8:10? 8:09 to be safe?”
  5. Get distracted by something else
  6. Miss the bus anyway

The Realization

One morning, while I was standing at the bus stop looking at the bus clock that read “Departs in 4 minutes,” I had a thought: I don’t need to know what time the bus leaves. I need to know when to leave my house.

These are not the same thing.

While knowing the departure times of the bus helps, it still leaves me calculating in my head. I only wanted something that would tell me when it was time for me to leave.

A Clock That Answers the Right Question

So I created a clock that tackles this real problem of mine rather than providing me information to interpret.

How it works: There are green areas on the face of the clock. When the minute hand is in the green area, you need to leave. That is it. No calculations. No reasoning. Only “Is the pointer in the green? Yes? Leave now.”

The red marks indicate the actual departure time for the buses, and they are set in such a way that the green areas are before the red marks, according to the time it takes for me to walk to the bus stop.

The Physical Version (Someday)

As of now, it’s a web app running on a screen. Which kind of negates the point of having an analog clock, but it’s a proof of concept.

The aim here is to actually construct a real-world version, like a real clock with motors and hands. This is because there’s a certain satisfaction with physical objects that simply exist and function without needing to be started or updated.

That’s a concern for future me. Current me is just glad to finally not be missing the bus.

If you’re interested in taking a look at the code or making your own, it’s all on GitHub. It uses live transit information and you’re able to set your walk time and how wide you’d like your “leave now” range.