The Perception of Time

Interesting stuff from Tom Vanderbilt:

Talking about the city’s “Transit Tracker” program, which allows people to get real-time info on bus arrivals via their cell phones, Hansen mentioned a study that had been done in the U.K. of a similar program. What was noteworthy was that people using the service felt that the bus service itself had improved, that more buses were running, that they were running closer to schedule, even though none of this was empirically true.

I have a particular interest in the fluid nature of time, and the way travel, queuing, and even routing can play additive and subtractive games with this. Paco Underhill, for example, notes that people who wait in airport lines overestimate the time they waited by some 50 percent. I’ve also seen it noted that a train trip with a transfer feels longer to people than it really is, that people overestimate the time it will take to walk somewhere and underestimate the time it will take to drive somewhere. Of course, one of the masters of managing time is Disney, with its posted wait times (just posting the time makes it feel shorter for people) at queues, wait times which are then inflated — so the payoff at the end is even better: That wasn’t long at all!

Among other things, this is important because I think improving the level of objective and subjective service people get from the bus is important to our transportation future. Ultimately, I think rail is essential as the backbone of a major metropolitan area’s mass transit, but that rail backbone can have its utility massively extended if supplemented by good buses. This is also why if you’re ever taking the Subway in New York City you’ll generally be happier if you get on the local train rather than waiting for the express even if the express would be faster. Waiting around makes people very unhappy for some reason.