Ragne Mathiesen

Ruter Sesong 




RuterSeason (RuterSesong) explores how Ruter, Oslos public transport system, can change its service based on the seasons and weather. #RuterSeason lowers the threshold for being active in Oslo by making it easier to plan activities and offering temporary bus routes and buses to destinations that are relevant during the different seasons.





From the city centre, it will be easier to reach destinations that today is hard to reach. For example, people living centre can be offered a direct ride to the beach in the summer, or sledding hills in the winter. Outside the city centre, people often travel with privately owned cars. 

The service makes it easier for the people that are usually dependent on their car to reach activity- destinations by public transport.







The digital app makes it easy to plan activities by providing users with weather conditions, sunset, the amount of people on activity paths, terrain and activity routes (ski, walking, biking paths).

The app will also inform the user about where the seasonal buses will travel to that week from the hub near them. They will also reicieve recommended activities that they can perform on the spesific destinations.







The Rutersesong-bus


The seasonal bus changes its route every month, giving residents from different neighbourhoods access to places that are usually difficult to reach by public transport. The buses take people to leisure destinations such as swimming spots and hiking trails.




The map

The map is one of the elements we designed for RuterSesong and can be found on all the seasonal buses. It shows seasonal activities and useful places in the area, such as hidden swimming spots, good ski trails, berries, mushrooms and fruit that can be found nearby. The content changes with the seasons and can also show cafés, places to eat, and public toilets.





The website

The website shows which seasonal destinations are available from different locations and changes with the seasons. It works as a supporting element to the app, which is the main part of the project.



The app


The app will alsoinform the user about where the seasonal buses will travel to that week from the hub near them. They will also reicieve recommended activities that they can perform on the spesific destinations.





To show how the app can be used to plan a leisure trip to a seasonal destination, I created a user journey.

Karianne, is a new user who wants to take her child, Mari, to a swimming spot. Her goal is to get home before it gets dark. 

First time opening the Ruter-app, she will be given an introcution to the service. Since it is the first time for her opening the app, she has no favorite destinations or saved joruneys





She lives at Hauketo, and sees what destinations the seasonal bus can travel to from her home there. She is interested in the  trip to Nøkkeltjern. The trip will take 16 minutes with Rutersesong, but without the seasonal offer it would take 35 minutes.





At the bus, she will take a physical map she can bring and keep. It will show her swimmingspots and campingspots, as well as mark where the seasonal bus will travel back from





She will also be informed on when the sun will set, the water temperature, and the overall temperature. She will also see when she has to return to the bus to make it home before dark. 










Testing, testing, testing...


We explored many different directions for how the app could look and feel. In the beginning, we moved quite far away from Ruter’s existing visual identity. After testing different ideas and discussing them with Ruter, we decided to find a visual identity that could work alongside the existing app. The goal was for RuterSesong to feel like a natural part of Ruter, rather than a separate app. To the right, you can see one of our inital tests.