Updated wayfinding for FAST, SMART's flagship service
FAST Michigan, SMART Route 261, pulls away from the Dearborn Transit Center en route to the airport.
In April 2026, buses on FAST Woodward, Michigan, and Gratiot began displaying new headsigns I designed to be visually distinct from the rest of the SMART system. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look into the reason for the change and the tech that makes it work.
SMART is treating this as a pilot. If you’re a rider and have thoughts, please share them with Customer Care (good or bad!)
FAST: A primer
FAST is SMART’s popular limited-stop service (“BRT Lite”, as fellow transit insiders might call it) connecting downtown Detroit to suburbs along Woodward, Michigan, and Gratiot. The majority of each FAST corridor is not standalone service, but rather an overlay atop existing local service with stops spaced roughly one mile apart. The lines simplify trips which used to require a transfer between local SMART routes and DDOT at Detroit city limits.
SMART launched FAST - “Frequent, Affordable, Safe Transit” - in 2018, following the success of the RTA’s earlier “RefleX” limited-stop service pilot. (Fun fact: FAST Woodward saw over 80,000 unique passenger trips in March 2026 alone, rivaling even off-peak Metra lines in Chicagoland .)
Answering the public’s demand for higher frequency
As part of SMART’s proposed 2026 service changes , FAST Woodward and FAST Gratiot frequencies were bumped to every 20 minutes in January. FAST Michigan is slated to see a frequency increase later this year.
The SMARTer Network plan , prepared by consultants in 2025 following multiple rounds of public feedback, calls for increasing weekday peak frequency on all three FAST corridors to every 20 minutes or better over a 3-to-5-year implementation period. SMART’s Planning & Scheduling team opted for a phased approach: Increase frequency as much resources would allow in Year 1 to provide immediate relief for crush-loaded buses, then make the final push later with an expanded fleet.
The agency had sufficient spare buses on hand to improve Woodward and Gratiot in January, but most of these vehicles were not FAST-branded.
On launch, FAST buses stood out from the rest of SMART’s fleet in two key ways: A special black “tie-dye” livery which was phased out in 2022-23, and onboard WiFi which is now being rolled out systemwide. Beyond this, the onboard rider experience and payment system was identical.
SMART finds itself facing the same vehicle maintenance challenges as other agencies across the country. If you’re interested in a deeper dive, read APTA’s report on the FTA’s Spare Ratio rules and Buy America requirements, but the gist is that agencies no longer have the luxury of locking specific vehicles onto specific routes. If you’ve been a SMART rider for any length of time in the past three years, you’ve no doubt seen a FAST-branded bus on a local route or a bus in a regular SMART livery on a FAST corridor.
A FAST bus recently upgraded to the new standard livery makes a cameo appearance on Route 492, a crosstown with local stop spacing, at Oakland University.
As a rider, I’ve always been of the “if you’ve got ‘em, roll ‘em” mindset. Service delivery is priority one. Most riders won’t care if their bus that’s supposed to be grey with a FAST sticker on the side is actually yellow or green or periwinkle with polka dots, but they will remember how long they waited in the cold and rain for whatever bus finally showed up. So I proposed a solution to the Marketing and Communications team: Move the wayfinding information off the bus wrap and onto the headsign so any bus in the fleet can be dynamically assigned to any route.
SMART ultimately plans to remove the physical lettering from buses which have it.
The “reverse out”
In the world of transit service information and wayfinding, there are few completely unsolved problems. I looked to Chicago for the solution to this one. Routes X9, X49, and J14 are among CTA’s limited-stop services and feature “reversed out” numbers on destination signage to separate them from the local routes they overlap.
Chicago and Seattle are among cities which use a reversed out route number to signify express service with wider stop spacing.
Left-aligned text
Both a key visual aid from a distance and an accessibility feature , this change allows FAST service to be easily distinguished from a distance - even if you aren’t close enough to read what the sign says.
A photo from testing day at the garage in early April. Even at a considerable distance and without reading any text, riders can tell FAST buses apart from locals on a given corridor.
Static door-side destination screens
If you’re standing at a stop served by multiple routes or with bidirectional boarding, rapid identification of your bus’s destination is critical. As an example, many SMART riders will be familiar with Bay 11 at the Jason Hargrove Transit Center off 8 Mile. Buses approach the shelter from a curve, so while you’ll see the route number, the front headsign might not cycle to the destination frame before it’s out of view and you’re facing the door.
Both directions of both branches of FAST Woodward board from this shelter. When delays lead to bunching, all four buses can show up at once.
With the door-side signs frozen on the “TO/VIA” frames, riders now have an immediate confirmation of where a bus is headed before they board. This eliminates boarding delays from riders waiting for this screen to cycle. If feedback is positive, this change may be expanded to a systemwide rollout.
If you’re standing right outside the door, you’ve already seen the route number and probably already know its name. You just need know which way you’re going.
Persistent marker for airport service
FAST Michigan riders will see a new plane icon when traveling westbound.
Riders waiting for a westbound 261 at bidirectional stops like Woodward and Clifford or the Dearborn Transit Center can look for the plane on the headsign. No more split-second guessing which bus is which in situations like this!
A bonus technical anecdote
Have you ever seen buses in various cities begging for steak sauce
? Here’s the nerdy technical explanation for why this happens 🥩
In Luminator IPS, one of the major software solutions used to program LED destination signs at agencies across the country including SMART, the database of destination sign codes is organized into at least three classes: A, B, and C. Class A is default static codes such as the agency’s name and website plus the emergency message should an operator need to trigger it. Class B is Public Relations codes (GO SPORTSBALL etc.) and Class C is your routes and destinations.
“A1 ME” is actually “A1 MESSAGE?”, just truncated. Class A, Code 1 in Luminator is hardcoded as “Exceeded Range or Invalid Message #” - it appears if an operator makes a mistake punching a code into the keyboard above their seat, or if the Message Transfer Unit file which stores all the codes is incorrectly configured. You might also see “A3 MESSAGE?” or “CHECK FILE” on buses new to an agency if they have a different array of signs such as a rear display. Submit a ticket to your agency if you see that one - their friendly wayfinding designers can fix it!
Destination signs provide important passive marketing for an agency’s bus network… and sometimes, actively targeted marketing for photoshoots 🧡