Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Automobiles

• Our driving performance improves when we’re smelling lemon, so next time you’re buying an in-car air freshener, go lemon.
• If you can tune the colour of the lights used in your car at night, bluer lights will seem brighter than orange ones of the same intensity, but those orange lights will make the car seem more luxurious and of higher quality—you pick which you’d prefer.
• Car seats that you think are more attractive are also the ones that you’ll think are more comfortable—again, your opinion, your pick.
• Watch out for cars with more “territorial markers” such as bumper stickers, because they’re more apt to be driven aggressively.

Aeroplanes

• Research conducted on aeroplanes has also shown that walking past those first-class seats does nothing to improve our subsequent behaviour. Doing so can actually cause us to act in antisocial ways, whether we’re travelling in coach or first class.
• We think our seat is more comfortable if the pilot seems professional and flight attendants seem to be providing good service.
• We prefer to sit on the right-hand side of the cabin, that’s the one to the right when we’re facing toward the cockpit.
• Other on aeroplane studies have shown that when we’re at cruising altitudes, the same foods don’t taste as sweet to us as they do on the ground, but umami flavours are enhanced.

Buses  

• Your personality determines where you’re likely to sit on a bus, on the lower level, with more gregarious people at the front, more independent-minded people in the middle of the bus and more risk-takers at the back. On the upper level, people who are future-oriented sit at the front and those at the back are more rebellious.
• Buses should be designed based on where they’ll be used. To keep people from feeling crowded “urban” buses that will be used in areas where the view out the windows is not very attractive need to focus on interior spaces, for example, helping riders feel more in control of their space via armrests, etc., while those that are used in areas with nice nature or urban views buses with larger windows are justified and the interior features aren’t quite as important.  To generalize, when people can see more easily out of a window on a bus, they feel less crowded.

Trains  

• Research on access to over-seat lights on trains confirms how important traveller control is for passengers to feel comfortable and to keep wellbeing levels up.
• On-train research also indicates that people prefer to sit near a door and prefer not to sit on a bench seat between other people.
• People standing would prefer to do so in vestibule areas near the doors, particularly if there are sets of doors on each side of the train car across from each other.
• People in crowded subway cars are more likely to make purchases when sent an offer on their mobile phone than people in less crowded cars.  Crowded car?  Protect your bank account by tucking your phone out of sight.

Spacecraft

Spacecraft interior design has been extensively researched also, but since you’re unlikely to be on a spaceship anytime soon or designing one, we’ll skip that for now.