If you are a frequent bus commuter, to pass the time, you might have stared at those weird and crazy patterns the seats are designed with.
Well, you might initially say that those designs are for aesthetics, but there’s actually a grim reason why those seats are made that way.
The real reason bus seats are usually designed that way is to hide how dirty they already are.
Bus seats are designed using complex and mind-altering patterns so the commuter’s eyes will be distracted from all the actual muck and grime that have already accumulated.
With these designs and illusions, commuters will be led to think that the seats are still clean, when in fact they are no longer so – an illusion that won’t be possible if the seat fabrics are designed plainly.
BBC has previously reported on this, too, featuring a design studio that designs fabrics for Transport for London (TFL), a government body responsible for most of the transport network in the city.
“Transport for London has historically adopted a wool moquette fabric,” Harriet Wallace-Jones, co-founder of Wallace Sewell, the design studio from the United Kingdom that has designed fabrics for TFL, told BBC.
Sewell added that this material is also very durable.
The London Transport Museum also supports this, saying, “Moquette was chosen for public transport for two reasons. First, because it is hard wearing and durable. Second, because its colour and patterns disguise signs of dirt, wear and tear. On top of this, moquette had the advantage of being easy and cheap to mass-produce.”
Now you know.
