Ruter public transport app

We live in an area with everything from museums, vintage shops and reading stalls to words, fields and fishing lakes. With the new Ruter service, we want to make just that what you need to look up where you want to travel properly. A service that promotes such mobility for all who live here, move here or visit us. A service that makes it more understandable to get from a to b.

To create what our customers deserve, we have combined the functionality in Ruter travel and Ruter ticket, and added new features such as personal profile, map and bus capacity. At the same time, the service is more than a travel app: it encourages you to get your feet wet if the weather is good and we will give you points for the trip. Points that you may later be able to use for ticket purchases. The end product will show that Ruter is not an app here and a website there - the new service is the whole Ruter in one place.

Together with a better design system, heavy mapping and meters of user experience, we want to make the journey in itself even to the simplest task in the world. Wherever you go.

We want to contribute to the UN's sustainability goals: The new Ruter service has built new and solid infrastructure by gathering information about all of the city's mobility choices in the same app. By encouraging the choice of public transport, we reduce the inhabitants' carbon emissions and streamline traffic in busy areas. By encouraging and rewarding cycling and walking, we also help the city's residents to take healthy and sustainable choices, while creating unity and street life.

The problem we want to solve: We have worked a lot to understand the customers and conduct research in this work. We therefore know that our customers must deal with many services, providers and products. With the new Ruter service, we try to gather this and all time make it easy to know what to do - when to do it. The service should be personal, contextual and smart, so that Ruter steps aside and is only an effective tool that allows the inhabitants to live their lives. The life of Eli, Mike, Tor and Mary are about them - not us.

Process: The process hasn’t not been linear, but definitely effective. Both Ruter and all the partners we have had great pleasure in being able to exchange knowledge and methods, and have worked closely and iteratively with design. Ruter's thorough analyses and research from previous projects have been of great help in mapping the scope of the project, and together with designers, consultants and developers with new technology and design expertise have provided new and unexpected solutions.

The result: The service has become user-friendly and innovative. Not only have we gathered Ruter's two main functions - travel planner and ticket purchase - in the same place, we have created new and long-awaited features such as maps, personal profile and information about how full your bus is in real time. Perhaps even more exciting is how we offer new services that will make people walk and cycle more, or to cover other mobility needs than what Ruter is perhaps best known for today. The service is also built on one flexible design system that is up-to-date, and that can easily be expanded and adapted to the future of public transport. If there is one thing since the pandemic has taught us, it is that the world and the future are not always as we think. At a time when designers and product developers around the world are wondering how they can increase the time people spend on their services, we dream of the opposite. Customers should no longer look for the content they need, they should simply spend less time and effort on public transport. Together with a good offer, customised content and an intuitive solution, we make it easier to relate to mobility in the metropolitan area.