kanchangaur.com / Metrolink fare restructure
LOS ANGELES

Metrolink fare restructure

2023 / metrolink / ux, usability testing, prototypes

Metrolink replaced a distance-based fare table with a simpler structure, and every surface that sells a ticket had to change with it: ticket vending machines, the machines conductors carry, and the app.

A vending machine is an unforgiving canvas. Outdoors, glare, gloves, a queue behind you, a train in four minutes, and a touch target that has to survive a resistive screen from 2011.

INTERACTIVE / TICKET MACHINE FLOW
STEP 1 OF 3
Where are you going?
TOTAL
$0.00
// working model: three decisions, oversized targets, total always visible. Illustrative fares, not Metrolink’s
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Three decisions, no more

The old flow asked a long list of questions. We got it to three by moving the rest into defaults that are correct for the common case and visible enough to override: today’s date, one adult, return not selected.

The running total sits in the same place on every step. In testing, the single biggest cause of abandonment was not confusion about the fare, it was not knowing how much had accumulated before the payment screen.

Two kiosk screens, choosing a destination with popular stations and line colours, then choosing a fare with the SoCal Day Pass ordered first because it saves the most
// fig.1: the kiosk: one decision per screen, fares ordered by value
The pay and collect screens, payment tiles with a session countdown, then a green approved header, take-your-ticket instruction, a ticket-slot graphic pointing at the physical slot, and returning-to-start stated in words
// fig.2: pay, then collect: the total the rider watched finally cashes out, and the machine resets in words, not a spinner
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Three surfaces, one model

The same fare model shipped to three places at once: the vending machine, the handheld the conductor carries, and the app. The conductor device turned out to be the honest reviewer of the whole restructure, if a conductor cannot explain a fare in one sentence on a moving train, the fare is wrong, and no interface will save it.

The app mirrors the machine’s order exactly, same three decisions, same sequence, so a rider’s second purchase is muscle memory regardless of where the first one happened.

The conductor handheld, a validate screen with a green verdict band and inspection note, and a sell-onboard screen carrying a SAY THIS card: one generated sentence the conductor can read aloud to explain the fare
// fig.3: the handheld: validate and sell onboard. The SAY THIS card is generated from the fare rules: if it cannot be said in one sentence, the fare is wrong
Three mobile screens, the ticket wallet with an active day pass, destination search with matched text highlighted, and the live ticket with a clock band that updates every second
// fig.4: the app mirrors the machine: and the ticket’s live clock is the anti-screenshot affordance
The accessible kiosk mode, dark high-contrast palette, larger type, four destination choices instead of six, same three-step flow
// fig.5: larger-text mode: same flow, higher contrast, fewer choices: not a separate product
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Outcome

3
Decisions before payment. Everything else became a visible, overridable default.
2
Touch-target minimums, one derived for the machines, one for the conductor handheld. Sized per device, not picked once.
3
Surfaces kept in sync: vending machine, conductor device, and app.