Wayfinding Challenges and Strategies

in Mumbai Suburban Railway

Shikha Agarwal, Abir Mullick and G.G. Ray

Abstract This paper reports findings from semi-structured interviews conducted

with local train commuters with different level of vision-full vision, low vision, no
vision and different level of familiarity-first time, occasional, daily commute. The
study had two objectives (1) to understand how the current train and station
environment limit or support wayfinding of train commuters (2) to explore and
compare the wayfinding experiences of people with different level of vision and
familiarity with station use and local train travel. The findings from the study
highlight ‘universal design’ considerations that should be taken to improve the
wayfinding experience in the existing station and train environment for wider
population.

Keywords Vision impairment Familiarity Wayfinding

Mumbai local trains,


semi-structured interviews Universal design

1 Introduction

Access to information is very crucial for quick decision making in context of dynamic
environments like mass transit system [1]. Mumbai Suburban Railway network is an
example of one such mass transit system that is known for its overcrowded train and
station environments, complex and diverse station layouts. Such factors strongly
affects way finding experience of commuters especially those with low level of
familiarity and vision. Mumbai was rated world’s sixth most populated city with a
population of 21 million in 2016 [2]. Local train commuting system is most preferred
mode of public transport by the population of Mumbai, including people with vision

S. Agarwal (&)
G.G. Ray

Industrial Design Centre, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India
A. Mullick
Navrachna University, Vadodara, Gujarat, India

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017 161

A. Chakrabarti and D. Chakrabarti (eds.), Research into Design
for Communities, Volume 1, Smart Innovation, Systems
and Technologies 65, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-3518-0_14
162 S. Agarwal et al.

impairments (VIs in later references) as it offer the cheapest and fastest way to travel
around in the city [3], primarily used to earn livelihood. Due to the benefits of travel
and city population, Mumbai Suburban Railway is one of the busiest and most
overcrowded commuter rail systems in the world. It carry 7.5 million commuters
daily [4]. Unlike new modern metro systems in India and other parts of the world,
Mumbai Suburban Railway is an old system started in 1853 [4]. Since then the rail
network and station infrastructure has been under the constant expansion with the city
population growth. Hence the railway stations and trains lack standardization in
spatial layouts and deprived of modern wayfinding signage system.
Ability to find way in station environment and travel from trains in peak hours is
a very strenuous wayfinding task of daily commuters who have vision. Hence for
commuters with VIs, the severity of wayfinding challenges faced is much high and
also interlinked with their safety. It is important to recognize that people with
disabilities like other able bodied people have rights to travel in the train safely.
Under PWD Act, 1995, the planning authority of Mumbai local trains implemented
several rules to ensure access to people with disabilities inside railway stations and
trains. A coach termed as ‘handicap coach’ was reserved for them in the local trains
to provide opportunity to travel from trains. Railway pass system for fixed route
was initiated for regular commuters to reduce queue for tickets. First-time/
occasional commuters with disabilities were preferred over general commuters in
queue for tickets. Architectural modifications like installation of ramps and esca-
lators were done at few stations. At some stations textured tiles were laid at the edge
of the platform to avoid people with VI from falling on railway tracks and facilitate
them in finding the handicap coach entry. Signage were painted on the coach
interface for identification and were also installed at the platform to earmark the
waiting area on the platform where the reserved coach stops. Along with the visual
signboard, auditory beepers (i.e., sound indicators) were installed that help to
identify the waiting zone for commuters with VI. The impact of these measures on
way finding experiences of commuters with VI will be discussed in detail in Sect. 5.

2 Literature Review

The term ‘wayfinding’ was first introduced by Kevin Lynch, in his book Image of
the City in 1960. It means “find one’s way” [5]. Wayfinding is a user-oriented
process that involves cognition, behavior and strategic planning of movement from
point A to B [6]. Further, it also involves the process of collecting information from
the built environment to know where we were, where we want to go and how to get
there [7]. Wayfinding behavior involve interactions between the traveller and the
environment [8]. Wayfinding experience is measured by “how communicative
elements facilitate getting from point A to B” [9]. According to Weisman [10], there
were three characteristics of the built environment generally accepted to affect
wayfinding—sign system, architectural differentiation and building plan
Wayfinding Challenges and Strategies … 163

configuration [10]. Personal factors like degree of-perceptual access [11] and spatial
familiarity [12] with the environment play a significant role in wayfinding process.
Wayfinding systems need to take account of communication needs of people
with varying abilities in a built environment [9]. Lack of wayfinding information is
a hidden barrier to universal access [13]. If the building information is not conveyed
in formats accessible to wide range of abilities, access to content of the building
become limited [14]. In addition to this lack of inclusive approaches further had a
negative psychological and health-related impact on the users [14]. Hence, Hunter
(2010) suggests that wayfinding aids should not be limited to visual signage, there
is a need to incorporate multi-sensory cues, landmarks that help visitor in orien-
tation, direction and identification of places [14].
Spatial familiarity means “how well we know a place” [12]. With increase in
familiarity, people refer to past knowledge stored in the brain for way finding [12].
Hence there is a decrease in the tendency to use a map or ask other people for
directions. Further, familiar users also look for selective information and disregard
overall general information [12]. Spatial familiarity is affected with the amount and
type of information received from the environment [12]. Thus this dimension of
wayfinding determines differences that occur in knowledge acquisition and strate-
gies employed to find way as one becomes more and more familiar with the
environment.
The dimension of vision in wayfinding study becomes interesting when we study
the interaction of the person with environment through his/her multi-sensory
modalities [11]. Since vision is considered as the most important modality to gather
spatial information, how people interact with environment in the absence of vision
is of interest. Visual signs offer restricted or no access to those with VI, as a result
the later customize his or her own individual wayfinding strategy to gather spatial
information [11]. Golledge and Stimpson (1997) in a study found that there was no
overlap in the cues used by blind and sighted [15]. Due to lack of vision, much
effort, concentration, memorization capacity and ability to mark non-visual refer-
ence points to gather spatial information is needed for successful wayfinding [16].
Architectural finishes and details, textures, lighting, color, etc. were communication
factors in wayfinding of people with VIs [16–18].
Learning new routes and experiencing new settings lead to tension, anxiety and
feeling of insecurity especially among people with VIs [15].
Though there are few evidence-based studies performed in developed nations on
way finding in a real life environments with real participants, no research has been
conducted in mass transit environments related to economically developing nations
like India. Past research in way finding had exclusive focus on visual impairment
and spatial familiarity, but no research conducted to study how level of-familiarity
and vision impairment together affect wayfinding behaviour. This leads to
question-What design issues people who have visual impairments and different
levels of familiarity reveal as they way-find in a train station environment.
164 S. Agarwal et al.

3 Methodology

The study had two objectives (1) to understand how the current train and station
environment limit or support wayfinding of train commuters (2) to explore and
compare the wayfinding experiences of people with different level of vision and
familiarity with station use and local train travel. Twenty participants were selected
based on two primary criteria: (1) Level of familiarity with local train travel: novice,
occasional and regular commuters; (2) Level of vision: full vision, low vision and
no vision (together called as people with vision impairments). Purposive and
snowballing sampling methods were used to recruit participants for the study.
Participants with VIs were recruited from two NGOs in Mumbai—National
Association for the Blind (NAB) and National Association of Disabled’s Enterprise
(NADE). Whereas sighted participants were recruited from Indian Institute of
Technology, Bombay. There were 5 males and 5 females in the age group of 22–57
in the group of participants with VI. There were six males and 4 females in sighted
group. The education spectrum ranged from standard 4th in school to graduation for
people with VI and for sighted it ranged from graduation to doctorate. Five com-
muters had low vision and 5 commuters were totally vision impaired. Seven par-
ticipants had mobility training and braille knowledge. Only two participants with
low vision used android phones. All commuters with VI used cane for outdoor
mobility. Semi-structured interviews were conducted based on participants’ past
experiences of wayfinding in station environment. They were preceded by field
observations [19], informal and unstructured interviewing. An interview guide with
mostly open-ended questions were used to allow participants to express their views.
Probing was used as a strategy to elicit responses from participants [20]. The
questions were developed, tested, refined after every interview. All interviews were
recorded and conducted face to face at the participant’s place of work or home.
Interview duration was between 1 and 1.5 h. The interview recordings were tran-
scribed into text. All interviews were coded and key responses were sorted. From
the interviews an understanding was built on the past experiences of the participants
regarding outdoor travel in other mass transit systems and local trains, coping
strategies and their learning process to become active in local train travel, assistance
of peers and family members in outdoor mobility, encounter of personal, envi-
ronmental and social wayfinding barriers and enablers. In the next section we
discuss the findings in context of wayfinding challenges, coping strategies and
suggestions reported by participants.

4 Findings

There were four types of wayfinding challenges faced by train commuters

(1) Information (2) Identification (3) Direction (4) Safety.
Wayfinding Challenges and Strategies … 165

4.1 Wayfinding Challenges

Information: These were challenges faced by the commuters related to information

about features, function and services of the facility, e.g., rules and regulations of
station use. All local train commuters mostly face challenges related to dynamic
information update about trains and platforms. Some of the most frequently dis-
cussed challenges were lack of information to novice commuters (both sighted and
those with VIs) about the Mumbai local train coach typology and boarding criteria
based on user and ticket type. Lack of awareness among novice commuters lead to
boarding in ineligible or undesired coaches. Similarly novice commuters also face
difficulty in selection of platform and train since train indicators were difficult to
comprehend due to use of acronyms. Public announcements were the only way to
access information of platform nos. and trains for commuters with VI. However
they were ineffective due to lack of timely updates, low audibility in peak hours and
reduced clarity. Lack of audio/visual alert of the departure time left for trains parked
on platform lead to hasty uncertain decisions for boarding creating a life risk
situation at platform-train interface especially for commuters with VI. Lack of audio
update inside trains on train stoppage between two stations due to signal result in
blind novice commuters fall on rail track.
Identification: These were challenges where commuters were unable to identify
their self location on station. Identification signs help to recognize places on station
with the help of names, numbers, words, alphabets etc. Mumbai local train stations
have several identification signs for station facilities, platform nos. and train types.
However they suffer from poor placement, standardization and lack of multisensory
signs to make them perceptible to all commuters.
Most frequently discussed challenges were lack of non-visual sign to identify
station entry and its type by unfamiliar commuters with VI as the station can be
entered through ticket hall/footbridge/circulation path/platform. Ticket hall
entry/exit identification sign in not presented in a single sensory format. Sign
differentiation between male and female washrooms are unclear to both sighted and
low vision commuters, whereas those without sight cannot use the washrooms
without help. All unfamiliar commuters independent of vision face difficulty in
selection of right foot over bridge as they connect to different parts of the station.
Unfamiliar commuters with VI were unable to identify decision points on the
footbridge for platform nos., connecting footbridge and station exit since the signs
were only in visual format. Unfamiliar commuters with VI find hard to maintain
path on desired platform when it is joined with another platform. Chances of
deviations were high due to lack of non-visual sign of platform no, on platforms.
The current identity signs painted on train coach interfaces were difficult to com-
prehend by unfamiliar commuters especially those with low vision. Further totally
blind commuters find hard to locate handicap coach entry as the train stops left/right
to the place where commuter with VI wait for the train and there were no non-visual
sign associated with it for easy detection. This lead to delay in boarding and
sometimes boarding in non-handicap coach. There were no non visual information
166 S. Agarwal et al.

of the platform no. of the destination station where the train stops, this information
is crucial for commuters with VI as they cannot access the visual sign board of
platform no. on platform disembarked.
Direction: In order to move from one point to another one needs information
about distance between two points, direction, landmark and identification sign for
both point A and B. Directional signs aid in movement from point A to B, e.g.,
arrow heads. On local train stations there were hardly any directional signs in a
single sensory format. Lack of directional signs lead to major wayfinding error in
route selection inside station by unfamiliar commuters both sighted and those with
VI. Factors like distance between two points, no. of floor level changes [21] in the
route taken, no. of decision points [18] impact perceptual accessibility of destina-
tion. However the level of difficulty was less for sighted as compared to blind as
route information to destination inside station can be gathered rapidly using visual
clues than auditory and olfactory cues [11].
Findings from the study reveal that all unfamiliar commuters find hard to locate
destinations that were beyond perceptual access like route to ticket halls, wash-
rooms, offset platforms, desired station exit. A regular totally blind commuter
reported “Washrooms were located at the extreme end of the platform. I don’t know
whether they were located on all platforms or not.” Lack of vision lead to inability
to detect route to destinations places even at arm’ length due to lack of non visual
identification sign associated with spatial elements like ticket windows inside ticket
hall, ticket hall exit, staircase of the footbridge, that were very obvious to be
perceived by sighted. Commuters with VIs were only successfully able to locate the
handicap coach due to the allocation of auditory visual signboard that earmarks
waiting area on platform. However the auditory beeper has several limitations like,
lack of installation on all platforms, mostly found in non-working state, they were
of no use when trains of different coach order arrives at the platform, surrounding
noise make them unheard in peak hours. On unfamiliar train routes, both sighted
and non sighted commuters were unable to anticipate left/right side location of
platforms of the upcoming stations inside the trains in the absence of updated
directional signs.
Lack of direction sign lead to wayfinding error resulting in time loss and frus-
tration for all. However they have a much stronger impact on the wayfnding
experience of people with VI. Absence of wayfinding aids that guide movement
right from station entrance to exit, generate stronger emotions like anxiety, fear,
helplessness, poor confidence and safety [15] among them.
Safety: Safety is one of the biggest challenge faced by commuters with VI
during station navigation. Poor safety during station navigation and train travel is
interlinked with lack of wayfinding aids. The findings are very crucial and unique to
Mumbai Suburban Railways. Station navigation for blind commuters were sub-
jected to fall and slip resulting in injury, loss of life or limbs due to inadequate built
environmental protection. Another important aspect of poor safety is collision with
commuters resulting in getting physically hurt or damage to their cane due to lack
of control on crowd movement.
Wayfinding Challenges and Strategies … 167

Built environmental limitations were erosion of walking surface and presence of

potholes and stones lead to unsafe walking at immediate station entry. Tiles laid on
staircase were mostly subjected to frequent erosion lead to fall. Poor environmental
protection against monsoon rains lead to commuters getting wet inside the station
building, further rains reduce visibility of low vision commuters and make walking
surfaces slippery. Lack of warning signs that help to anticipate walking surface
level change from floor to steps or staircase lead to fall among totally blind com-
muters. Ramp cum staircase were difficult to use for the same reason. Steep ramps
were difficult to negotiate by all commuters. Lack of environmental protection to
avoid fall in the gap between-train and platform interface, handicap coach and
neighboring coach is one of the major wayfinding challenge faced by commuters
with VI. A stripe of textured tiles are laid at some station platforms as an indicator
of platform edge detection. However, these stripes lack standardization both in
width and placement. There is lack of protection from getting hit by overhead
architectural elements like overhead wall, girder, freestanding pole and seating
areas. Absence of door closing feature in all train coaches is a high risk factor for all
train commuters.
Poor safety is also due to collision with people and their belongings like luggage,
baskets etc. Presence of fast moving swarming crowd inside station makes com-
muters with VI less visible to the sighted crowd, in spite of carrying cane and
wearing black glasses. Problem of collision were reported by participants with VIs
especially at high crowd dynamic points like platform train interface when people
rush to board and disembark from trains, footbridge and staircase where crowd
moves in a high speed to board the approaching train. Collision at such places lead
to fall and severe injuries. A vision impaired commuter shared an experience,
“When we walk people don’t see us, they push us, many a times they break our
stick. I can’t say anything to them. People don’t see that a blind person is coming.”
Similarly collision happen when a blind commuter is unable to gauge the presence
of a commuter in the his/her path during navigation. In such situations, intolerant
and insensitive behavior of sighted commuters were reported by participants. For
example, a blind boy shared his station experience, “I collided with women sitting
on bench, she called me mad and then I gave an answer that I am not mad, I am a
handicap.” From the insights we can conclude that for effective way finding there is
a need to make the navigation collision free and safe for commuters with VI.

4.2 Coping Strategies

Coping strategies are ways commuters have developed to overcome wayfinding

challenges based on their level of familiarity and vision. A study of coping
strategies help to understand the limitations and the abilities of commuters and how
they find way inside railway station.
Travel with escort is a strategy especially employed by commuters with VI at
early stages of commuting when they learn to become travel active in local trains.
168 S. Agarwal et al.

All commuters with VI learn travel from local trains with the help of family
members, friends and visually impaired peers. After attaining sufficient knowledge
and experience about station navigation and train travel through repeated journeys
on the same train route and inside station route, they begin independent travel.
However, all commuters independent of familiarity level with VI reported poor
confidence in visiting unfamiliar stations unescorted. Whereas there was a little
dependency on escort to learn to travel from local trains among novice sighted
commuters.
Social Communication: refer to verbal and non-verbal communication between
people to ask and receive help for wayfinding. Asking people for directions were
considered as the most helpful wayfinding tool by commuters with VIs, inspite of
many limitations. Availability of so many people around, make them only source of
information access at any point of doubt in the entire journey in the absence of
accessible way finding signs. A totally blind commuter reported, “We are depen-
dent on public help for station mobility. If I do not have information, we rely on
public help. Without public help, I cannot travel in trains.” However there is
relatively less reliance on social communication among sighted commuters irre-
spective of familiarity as they have advantage of vision to perceive environmental
information.
Social communication in itself has several limitations mostly reported by par-
ticipants with VI: Firstly, the chances of getting response from public depend upon
level of sight and spatial crowd dynamics. People with VI, ask for help at instances
when there is no one around or unable to make eye contact with the person. Hence
their queries many a times remain unheard by public on station. A totally blind
commuter shared, “After saying aloud 10 times, 11th time some commuter will
respond, what do you want, this is the biggest difficulty, nothing is as difficult as
this.” Chances of getting help also depend upon spatial crowd dynamics i.e. how
crowd moves in a built environment. There were more chances to receive help
inside ticket hall and platform as people wait for ticket purchase and train. Whereas
it is difficult to take public help on footbridge and staircase as these spaces involve
fast crowd movement. Secondly, miscomprehension of verbal help lead to mis-
guidance. Verbal commands like “go straight”, “take right”, “go there”, “ahead”,
“infront”, given by sighted commuters were very confusing for participants with
VIs as they fail to understand keeping what orientation in mind these commands
were given. Such commands if misunderstood lead to fall on rail tracks or collision
with built environment. Thirdly, commuters face difficulty in identification of
specific type of people for specific help due to low or no vision e.g. women with
VIs prefer asking help from same gender to protect themselves from eve teasing.
Also for certain task like locating toilets, they prefer seeking help from same
gender. Further, all commuters independent of level of vision find hard to locate
railway staff at the point of confusion unlike general public. Fourthly, misguidance
also lead to major wayfinding error like selection of undesired footbridge, platform,
train and coach. As a result people with VI had to pay penalty in terms of time and
energy loss.
Wayfinding Challenges and Strategies … 169

Wayfinding cues: Cues are environmental information people use to make sense
of the environment. Wayfinding cues are understood using Donald A. Norman’s
framework of environmental information. According to Norman (1988) there are
two kinds of environmental information people use for wayfinding: “affordances”
and “signs” [22]. Signs are specifically designed to serve as wayfinding aid for
example auditory beepers and warning tiles at platform. Affordances include
environmental physical (tangible) or non-physical features (intangible) that have
personal or social significance, developed by the commuters to combat deficiency
of signs e.g. people follow outgoing crowd movement to exit from station, in the
absence of exit signs. Environmental information on railway station is perceived
through mainly four types of sensory cues-tactile, olfactory, auditory and visual.
Train commuters develop affordances as they earmark single or multiple sensory
cues to physical and non physical characteristics of station architecture and ele-
ments inside and outside station that are—interior fixed, exterior fixed, interior
dynamic and exterior dynamic [18]. Use of affordance depend upon level of vision
and familiarity with environment. Most affordances were developed by commuters
with reduced vision and high familiarity. Sound was the most important mode used
to perceive environment among totally blind commuters. Whereas sight is the
primary mode of information perception for low vision and sighted commuters.
Tactile Cue: Blind commuters used both hand and cane for tactile information
There were no wayfinding signs in braille on station. Interior/exterior fixed affor-
dance like changes in floor and wall surfaces using cane were a way to establish
landmark and also provided a useful tool to delineate a path through open spaces.
Further cane was used to sense objects like seats, pole, luggage; in the path during
navigation to avoid injury. Placement and order of interior/exterior fixed objects
both inside and outside station building like poles, vendor shops, water stall,
washroom served as landmarks for place identification and route direction.
Similarly path was also memorized with the help of architectural attributes like
handicap coach location is below the ramp, wide footbridge connect platforms of
two train lines, footbridge are identified with and without hawkers. Path that are
aided with references like walls of platforms and footbridge, handrails of staircase
perceived through cane and hand touch supported walk without deviation. Whereas
paths without any reference like middle platforms had rail tracks on both sides were
very difficult to delineate especially by unfamiliar totally blind commuters.
Auditory cue and Olfactory cue were used in combination or in isolation
depending upon the sensory quality of the object or place, like sound of glasses and
smell of food helped to perceive food stalls, presence of cobblers around were
perceived through shoe polish brush sound and smell of polish. Toilets were per-
ceived through bad smell. Environmental sounds like noise or silence were an
indicator of train stop location between two stations or on platform. Calm or hasty
body language of people reflect train standing on platform or not. Presence of
staircase was understood with the sound produced by the footsteps of the crowd.
Handicap coach in the absence of auditory beepers are identified with sound of
ladies on the platform as handicap coach is next to ladies coach.
170 S. Agarwal et al.

Visual cue: Low vision commuters can only read signs that have information in
big fonts, good color contrast and use symbols. The sign boards should stand out
from the background environment for better readability. Sighted commuters espe-
cially those with smart phones use web based information to-track direction to
station exit in the absence of way finding signs, select train due to difficulty in
comprehension of train indicators, get informed of the upcoming station in the
absence of public announcements inside the station.

4.3 Suggestions

From Commuters with VIs: (1) Provide audio cue to locate handicap coach entry,
(2) Provide safety measures to avoid fall on railway tracks, (3) Ensure installation
of auditory beepers on all platforms. (5) Provide audio inputs at different decision
points on the footbridge informing commuters about different platform nos.
(4) Incorporate change in surface texture as a warning sign to detect platform edge,
staircase and steps.
From Sighted Commuters: (1) Install dynamic maps both inside train and
station. Map inside the train should help commuters visualize the train route and its
stop locations. The map on station should be interactive that inform commuters
about the different train lines, stations and train type. Further it should also inform
commuter’ location on the station. (2) Start online ticketing system to avoid queue
(3) Install visual signs for all type of train coaches (4) Develop wayfinding app for
all railway stations (5) Increase no. of help desks and place them at locations like
station entry, platforms and other junctions where people ask for maximum help.
From Sighted and VI commuters: (1) There should be provision of telephonic
Interactive Voice Response System helpdesk, that provides answers to station- and
train-related queries. (2) Information should be provided to all novice commuters
about train coach typology and train type. (3) There should be multisensory
information that help in selection of footbridge before climbing stairs and creation
of identity signs for footbridge easy recognition. (4) Install path direction signs to
locate nearest washrooms and ticket halls. (5) Use bright colors and contrast in
signboards for better readability even in night. Big fonts should be used for easy
identification of ticket hall, washrooms and station exit from distance. (6) Provide
timely update of the upcoming trains on different platforms as information of train
indicators are inaccessible to people with VI and both novice and occasional
commuters with sight find hard to understand train indicators due to use of many
acronyms. (7) Public announcements inside all trains should announce name of
upcoming stations, their platform no. and left/right direction. (8) Provide infor-
mation of nearest popular locations to select exit point and directions signs for path
guidance.
Wayfinding Challenges and Strategies … 171

5 Conclusion

Many suggestions made by the commuters have been already implemented in other
transport systems internationally. These suggestions need to be prioritized from
user lens as a future scope of this work and addressed through an action plan with
short- medium-long term goals.

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