Another thing that's a major improvement to me: I can take public transport in a place I'm unfamiliar with, and I don't have to sit anxiously hoping that the bus driver will actually remember to call out my stop and let me off - I can just look at the screen that displays the upcoming stop.
Also (though it is lumped in with smartphone's "too much to list"): if I reply to someone's text message, I can actually read that message while I'm typing up the reply.
I took busses to go places ever year of the 90s and I've never heard of a driver actually call out any stops, back then you just had to already know exactly where you were going to get off at the right stop. I would stick to routes I was already familiar with. Not only that but you had no idea of the schedule (when the bus would come) you had to already have a physical copy of the bus schedule. Kept copies of the bus schedule for select routes at my house, but who knows if they've been updated or not since you grabbed it.
Took a bus in my home town recently and the upcoming stop was labeled with an LED board like on a train. I couldn't imagine something like that 20 years ago. I agree it makes travel 1000% better and I would have gone to less familiar places if it were available back then.
> I took busses to go places ever year of the 90s and I've never heard of a driver actually call out any stops, back then you just had to already know exactly where you were going to get off at the right stop.
Yeah, the method you had to use where I'm from is to know where you had to get off, then ask the bus driver when you hop in whether they're actually going there - then they'd call out your stop, usually.
Not the greatest, especially not for a shy kid like I was.
> I can take public transport in a place I'm unfamiliar with
Pre-smartphone, I had immense trouble taking public transport in a place I'm familiar with. Usability seems like the last concern of the people who design most bus systems, at least in the US.
I frequently think this when traveling and, if anything, it's probably gotten worse. It used to be a case of giving some cash to someone in a booth. Now it's often about fumbling around with some machine, hoping your credit card works if you're in a different country, figuring out what the appropriate fare type is, etc. Oh, and doing this in a tourist destination like an airport so there's a long line of people doing the same thing. No one who designs these systems gives more than 30 seconds thought to their use by people who don't use them every day.
In Melbourne, the designers got their comeuppance. The barristers ganged up with the judges, and for a while it became a principle of Victorian law that the ergonomics of public transport tickets were irredeemable, and anyone who claimed to have made a reasonable attempt to pay their fare would be let off.
That didn't last long, but the panic it provoked in the bureaucracy was hilarious.
20yrs ago on holiday in Switzerland the bus announced every stop ... still waiting to get a bus-stop with a timetable in my UK city (the stop is a post with a list of bus numbers on).
Also (though it is lumped in with smartphone's "too much to list"): if I reply to someone's text message, I can actually read that message while I'm typing up the reply.