Mr. Bus' bus buzzer collection
In Japan, when you want to get off a bus, you press a little button with the words "will stop next" on it. The button lights up, a beep goes off, and a robotic woman's voice says: "We will stop next." Mr. Bus is a quirky guy who dedicates all his free time to collecting these bus buzzers. He started 25 years ago and now has over 200 different ones, some of which he has wired into this giant billboard so he can light them up. He finds them at bus depots and by scavenging through discarded vehicles at dumpsters. "It's a very Japanese thing, the polite exchange between passenger saying 'I pushed it' and the bus buzzer saying 'I have received your request,'" he says. "It's such a thoughtful invention."
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Mr. Bus is a quirky guy... that reminds me of The Tram Manic in Akira Kurosawa's Dodesukaden - which I'd forgotten, nice to remember, I must try and see that again.
Ah, I'm disappointed. I thought the buttons would actually work if you pressed them. I pushing all of the buzzer gifs but none rang. Dang!
What a strange thing to collect. :)
Great idea!
I suspect Mr BUS will love the new "Bus Musume" figure series that will be relesead in september by Tomytec!
Maybe he is in love with the voice...
So how do you get off a bus in other countries?
More-or-less the same system is used in the UK, and every other European country I've been in. You press a button, a buzzer or bell sounds, and a sign at the front of the bus is illuminated ("Bus Stopping"). Newer buses have a robot voice and an LED display showing the name of the next stop -- in London the voice says "Bus stopping at next bus stop -- please stand well clear of doors", which is far too long and irritating.
Most buses in Germany work like this too; but i don't think that over the years there have been nearly as many different buzzer types, but then again i've lived only for so long :)
As opposed to the U.S., where we pull a cord, hear a little "ding," and a "stop requested" sign in the front of the bus lights up? And, depending on the bus, you might have a male voice that says, "stop requested" out loud? Wow, that is different!
Bus-sized dumpsters? Now that's interesting.
Actually, the thing I remember as being weird about the buses in Japan (Kyoto and Utsunomiya, 1990) was that you boarded the bus from the rear door, pulled a ticket, and then exited from the front, paying depending on how far you went.