Crowd sourcing of public transport problems

Social sites on the World Wide Web allow increased sharing of ideas and problems. Such online networking includes the ability to report public transport problems and get support for campaigns to improve specific aspects of public transport. One site that offers such a facility provided access to its data on problems that were reported over a 13 month period. These were assessed and comparisons were made to see if those campaigns that got the most support were inherently different to the campaigns that received little support, and to investigate the types of problems that were reported online. Whilst definitive answers cannot be given, there are some suggestions that come out of the analysis and the overall impact on improving public transport accessibility and usability is discussed.