Tough call

For one of my courses I have to write a proposal for an idea of my own creation. It has to have a clearly defined audience and be written to appeal to them, even if they might be hostile to the idea. I have a plan to propose some sort of device to signal bus drivers to wait a second so you can catch the bus (seeing how 2 pulled away from me when I was just about to get on).

My problem is, the audience I'd be writing it for (OC Transpo) isn't the one that will benefit from it (bus riders). I'm having trouble coming up with reasons why OC Transpo should bother with this system since people are going to take the bus regardless of if they miss one now and again.

Customer satisfaction? Nobody likes the bus, so that won't change much. Increased revenues? Bus traffic might not increase, but they could make money selling the device as a separate service. More people per bus? That could be argued to be more effecient use of bus space and related to fuel costs (so they aren't running nearly empty buses), but I'd be reaching. Improved public relations? It would have prevented me from getting pissed off at the bus driver twice, so I guess that's a good point. Prevention of bus-chasing accidents? I'm not sure that ever really happens, but it might prevent a lawsuit someday.

I haven't decided on an implementation of the device, so I can't list the downfalls yet, except to say it'll probably be fairly complicated. Lots of buses travel into the same places, so targetting the right one will be a tricky issue, one I'll probably bypass by having a route selector on the device, which could work like a garage door opener. Just point and hit the button, and a light pops up in the dashboard telling the driver to wait a second or two.

At any rate, the proposal idea is due on Thursday, and I have to have decided on my audience and why it benefits them by then. Hope I figure sometihng out.