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By Lookout Staff

June 27 -- Want to weigh in on what buses should look and ride like in 2050? Bus Blue Bus officials are urging riders to hop aboard a new blog and help shape the future.

Santa Monica’s bus company is hoping to elicit some “compelling, out-of-the-box, eco-friendly and even unorthodox answers” from a team of designers from the Art Center College of Design, an influential transportation design school.

Together with Big Blue Bus officials, the team is taking part in a project to create a “big picture” vision of the next generation of transit intended to begin a “thought-provoking and ongoing dialogue between the transit industry and the public.”

“We need bold new visions of where transit can ultimately go, so that we can engage the public and make transit a desirable and regular part of people’s lives,” said Stephanie Negriff, director of transit services for the Big Blue Bus.

“We’re hoping through this innovative partnership with Art Center College of Design that we can help inspire not only the public’s imagination, but also provide fresh new ideas and solutions to the country’s bus manufacturers to seriously consider,” Negriff said.

The public can use the blog (www.BusOfTheFuture.com) to participate in polls, access the design students’ progress reports and rough sketches of the concept vehicles and post messages and comments.

The idea for the unusual collaboration came about when the agency was researching options to purchase new buses, Negriff said.

“As we looked around at what was available, it became clear that although bus technology has rapidly improved, bus design is still lagging behind,” Negriff said. “That’s something that definitely needs to change.

“Buses today look pretty much like they did 50 years ago, and I think the industry is aware that to encourage the public to ride more and drive less, tomorrow’s buses will need to be sleek and sexy, environmentally friendly, customized for maximum comfort and responsive to all the different ways people want to use transit.”

The design team from Art Center College of Design includes Geoff Wardle, Director of Advanced Mobility Research and Associate Chair of Graduate Industrial Design, and design students Mike Peterson (8th term, Environmental Design), Gabriel Wartofsky (6th term, Transportation Design) and Giuseppe Filippone (6th term, Transportation Design).

“Art Center is very committed to exploring, researching, defining and designing the very best transportation solutions for tomorrow’s world,” said Wardle, “so it is very appropriate for us to be partnering with the Big Blue Bus on this visionary Bus of the Future project.”

It’s important to develop urban environments and transportation systems “hand in hand so that day-to-day mobility becomes seamless, comfortable, convenient, accessible and stress-free,” Wardle said.

“The greatest challenge with all public transportation systems is to ensure that passengers feel in complete control of their journeys so they can travel at times completely convenient to them, and relax and enjoy their experience,” said Wardle.

The best way to ensure this, he said, is to bring professional transportation designers into the equation early on. “Designers understand what people respond to and how to make the total experience compelling. Buses should be as exciting as cars to ride in!”

The first phase of the project involved extensive research by the design team, including riding around the Los Angeles-area on various bus lines and asking passengers what they liked – and didn’t like – about riding the bus.

The project is scheduled to be completed at the end of August, when designers will unveil six conceptual versions of the “Bus of the Future,” including three 3-D models, to demonstrate how people might travel in the future.

Other project elements will include animation of a ride experience from a passenger’s point of view and a video chronicling the lifespan of the project. The 3-D models will be judged by a prestigious panel of transportation and design experts at AltCar Expo in Santa Monica on September 26.