From a conversation about how inconvenient the buses are in Birmingham…
Benefit of Inconvenience vs plain inconvenient
From April I have 4 fourth year students to supervise, and in order to make a BoI-esque system reality (actually we didn’t have the budget), I got them to make their own PC for research and install the OS (Ubuntu Linux) by themselves. It seems that their understanding towards calculators has been deepened, and I feel that they’re using their PCs with a sense of attachment, so there’s been plenty of benefit for the students. However, because there aren’t any Masters or PhDs who understands PCs at this lab, all the questions come to myself, and as a result, I’ve had to learn about Ubuntu as well, so there has been some benefit for me too, but I’m veering towards Inconvenience.
The difference between a BoI-esque Inconvenience and normal Inconvenience is refers to that, although the latter should function and be serviced as a system, when that’s betrayed, we think “oh, so inconvenient”. On the other hand, I think the former is, as it says, enjoying the inconvenience,
Buses in Birmingham
However, even so, I do think that “plain inconvenient” things do exist. For example, buses in Birmingham:
“Bus Stop” doesn’t indicate which bus stop it is.
Furthermore, it’s just a tiny plate fixed onto a lamppost, so if you’re not already aware of the bus stop, it’s hard to tell where it is.
On top of that, the bus doesn’t inform where the next stop is.
Basically, unless you check the area beforehand, it’s a system which makes it impossible to ride the bus. Of course you have to ask the driver beforehand, so it’s possible to interpret this as BoI since you have to communicate with the bus driver. However, the bus drivers are often from southeast Asia, so it’s difficult to communicate unless you have the ability to understand their thick accents and be able to pronounce the names of locations, which often have old spellings and pronunciations.
Also, if you’re standing at a bus stop, they won’t stop unless you wave. I’ve had two or three experiences where the bus drove straight past me because I wasn’t paying attention.
But, depending on your point of view, there are benefits too.
Due to the development of Satnavs, “escape routes” from traffic congestion are displayed. This is useful for users (in reality, it’s not the shortest route, so it doesn’t necessarily cut the journey time, but it does reduce the psychological stress. However, the locals who use the side roads in daily life might find it inconvenient because the amount of traffic there is increased.
The lcal buses in Kyoto have well put together information and are extremely useful. Therefore tourists can feel comfortable using them, but during the peak seasons, they are so congested that it’s distressing for locals.
Difficult bus systems might be useful in such a way that it limits who can use it (whether that’s the intention is another story). In this case, if tourists think, “It’s effort so let’s get a taxi even if it’s more expensive”, then it’s possible to separate the modes of transport (this may seem forced, but insuring separation?). In Kyoto, the capacity of the roads themselves is small, so either way it’s inconvenient.
How about the railways in Birmingham?
Like in Japan, there are systems which display the arrival times of the train, like “on time”, but unlike Japan, they’re very imprecise: one minute they say “on time”, so I wait about 3 minutes, and check the display again thinking it’s not coming, and it’s changed to “5 minutes late”, so I wait, believing it will come in the next 2 minutes or so, and then the display had changed to “10 minutes late”. The train was supposed to come once every 20 minutes or so, but I ended up waiting for about 15.
Furthermore, the trains don’t stop at exact points on the platform, or they might be specified but nobody follows them, but, everytime the train stops at a different point. Well, I managed to get used to this.
When I was there, there was an accident in Amagasaki with West Japan JR, and seeing the news about the train driver who panicked over “regaining the 1 minute delay” and “overrun”, and my colleagues were surprised, or perhaps more like, they looked as if they’d just seen an unfathomable world.
So this would be an example where the benefits differ between points of view (cultures). In summary, not feeling any inconvenience even if the train isn’t on time. In this case, perhaps the benefit would be “accident prevention”.