Today we announced several advanced features of Routeserver, Urban Mapping’s multi-modal routing engine (supports rail, walk, bus, bike, ferry). One of the features we’ve been working on plays into cognitive psychology, something we’ve researched for other products. Urban Mapping doesn’t profess to be a domain expert, but by applying existing research to our field of work, we are able to come up innovative products and features from time to time.

The executive summary of the latest goes something like this: perception of time does not follow ‘actual’ time; in computing, the (technical) cost of completing a journey (by automobile, walking, transit, etc…) is a function of the number of transfer points/nodes, modes of travel, travel time/schedule and route-segment attributes (average speed, express v local, elevator v stair, etc…). The psychology of waiting can be easily understood. An oft-cited (and possible urban myth) puts it well in an article from the esteemed Harvard Business School:

What do you do when you’re waiting for a slow elevator?

A number of years ago, a company that had just built a major building realized their elevators were intolerably slow. What to do? It was too expensive to reengineer the elevators. After thinking about the problem for a while, mirrors were installed in the lobby and elevators. It turns out that people will tolerate a much longer wait if they can see themselves in a mirror.

Today, most tall buildings have mirrors or polished metal surfaces in their lobbies and elevators.

Routeserver now does something similar with transit routing–standing and waiting for a bus/train/stop light has a longer perceived duration, despite the fact that it may actually be of shorter duration. Academic research (for example) has verified this, and common sense seconds the motion. So there you have it. Routing–have it your way!