research
Transit experts, climate activists, urban planners and social scientists disagree on many things, but there’s one belief that almost all of them share — that buses are one of the most efficient, sustainable and cost-effective mass movement technologies we have in the world today. Despite this, our collective imagination for the future of mobility often overlooks the bus in favour of shinier, more seemingly-innovative transport technologies. We believe that this needs to change.
‘Buses I/O’ is a video report exploring the ways in which we can elevate the bus' role in society and capitalise on all of its empowering and emancipatory moving potential.
Introduction: Welcome to Buses I/O
In this first video, Doug welcomes us into the world of buses, introduces the research we’re about to explore and outlines what viewers can expect from this experiment in video reporting.
Interlude: Our Modern History of Moving People
Before diving into the report, we first take a brief journey through space and time into the history of our collective forms of transport.
Chapter 1: Transit Buses
In this video chapter, we introduce some of the common challenges of urban mobility, position buses as one of the most crucial solutions that we’ll need to lean on in order to overcome them then, finally, explore some of the ways in which we could go about building better bus systems from a holistic, cross-collaborational perspective.
Chapter 2: Long-Distance Buses
In this video chapter, we outline the sensible benefits of long-distance buses as well as their perceived and experienced downfalls, then profile some interesting case-studies of unconventional long-distance mobility, before highlighting several systemic ways we could think about designing the next generation of long-distance hospitality.
Chapter 3: School Buses
In this video chapter, we acknowledge the liberating nature of school buses, then dive straight into a number of ways we could use buses and mobility in general to empower access to rural education.
Conclusion: Thanks for Joining!
Before signing off, Doug briefly recaps the core questions from this video report, then invites viewers to leave their own reflections and responses in the conversational form below.