Background: Serving over 15 million people
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority serves over 15 million people across 5,000 square miles. Made up of New York City’s subways and buses, bridges and tunnels, the Long Island Rail Road, and Metro-North Railroad, the MTA is North America’s most expansive mass transit system. The MTA communicates with its riders in myriad ways, and massive amounts of energy and resources pour into gathering, coordinating, and disseminating information.
Problem
The MTA communicates with its riders in myriad ways, and massive amounts of energy and resources pour into gathering, coordinating, and disseminating information. As part of a transformation initiative, the MTA set out to install over 50,000 digital screens across its entire network. The MTA was unsure about how to deal with getting messaging to riders in a timely, efficient way across this vast network, they just didn’t deal with it before, and the tools were lacking in terms of broadcasting or narrow casting to different screens across thousands of screens.
Outcome
An incredibly powerful messaging and communication platform that helps 15 million New Yorkers plan their day
Role
User Research, UX Research, UI Design, Usability Testing, Prototyping, Systems Thinking, Design Systems
Objectives
Building for 2030: A Single Source of Truth for millions of New Yorkers
As the MTA continues to transform itself into a digital-first organization, Mercury provides a flexible and extensible messaging infrastructure. As rider habits and expectations evolve and grow, Mercury is ready to meet the challenges of the future. As a single source of truth, messages are written once and published across multiple endpoints through the NYCT Subways, Buses, Long Island Railroad (LIRR), and Metro North Rail Road (MNR).
A flexible infrastructure to target and update different endpoints all at once
Initially, MTA used a patchwork of workflows and tools that accumulated over the years — relics of the past. Over time, those tools and processes became integral parts of how the MTA functioned. A strategy was put forward to create a unified, data-driven messaging platform that powers every new and legacy channel: social media, email, websites, apps, and digital screens. In Mercury, the MTA was able to publish, then update service alerts, planned work, campaigns, and emergency responses in real-time.
Refining Simplicity and reducing complexity as Mercury matures
As Mercury matures, it was necessary to continually evaluate and simplify its user interface and user experience. This included removing unnecessary and outdated features, streamlining technical endpoints, and making information more easily accessible. Reducing complexity not only improved the overall usability of the Mercury, but it decreased the loading time of real-time alerts, planned work messages, and campaigns. Additionally, creating, consolidating, and simplifying Mercury’s design system also made it easier to maintain and update, which can ultimately lead to cost savings for the MTA.
Impact
On April 12, 2022, when the Brooklyn subway shooting left people injured, confused, and afraid, our team found ourselves reflecting on the impact of this work.
The platform we built created a centralized way for the MTA to push a single source of accurate data to lots of different endpoints in real time — so people would get the same information from the MTA app that they saw on the subway screens and on third-party sites, like Google.