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Metro Vancouver’s TransLink is often held up as a model agency. When riders speak up, they listen. And most importantly, they take action. 

A key pillar of TransLink’s superbly-crafted Customer Experience Action Plan is making services safer and more pleasant – including bus stop amenities. Good lighting makes a big difference to how stops feel, with the added bonus of helping bus operators see when someone’s waiting for a ride. 

So, TransLink crunched the numbers to understand the impact lighting had on the rider experience. One key datapoint in their toolkit: Rate-My-Ride responses.

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Waiting in the dark can inspire
heebie-jeebies in even the bravest souls

300,000 monthly users in Metro Vancouver send over 200,000 Rate-My-Ride responses every month, shining a light on every corner of the customer experience.

On rides between sunset and sunrise, our app polls riders about the lighting at their stop. Now as winter wafts ashore and nights are getting longer, more and more riders are being served this question. Which means agencies now have more data to work with when they need it most!

45,000 vitamin D-deficient Metro Vancouverites reviewed their stop’s lighting with Rate-My-Ride in the last year, covering stops across the region. On average, 49% of Rate-My-Ride responses said that their bus stop was too dim, a figure that creeped up to 53% in November as the days got shorter.

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Now, riders are seeing the light

In partnership with Urban Solar, TransLink set up new solar-powered lighting at four initial stops in Spring 2025. Very soon, Metro Vancouverites will be basking in the glow of an additional 10 newly-luminous stops across the region. 

If your trip starts at one of these stops, we’ll let you know about TransLink’s brilliant addition to your stop amenities. You can also peep the full list of better-lit bus stops here.

Riders who use GO along those stops will also be able to submit real-time feedback on the new lighting. (We’ll obviously share the data back with TransLink to supplement their at-the-stop survey!)

TransLink’s Bus Stop Lighting Program is yet another enlightened example of how listening to riders brightens more than just bus stops — it makes our lives feel safer, warmer, and a whole lot more accessible. With a solid plan and the real-time rider feedback data to back it up, agencies can make tangible customer experience improvements across the network, shoring up support not just from riders, but also across multiple levels of government.

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If Rate-My-Ride could add a few watts of rider input to your next project, drop us a line.