Cold Canadian Bus Stops are Heated by Human Connections

duracell bus stop heaters

Public transportation is enough to make some people want to go home and never leave again. Buses – and particularly bus stops – are not the friendliest of places, but a cute marketing campaign for Duracell makes waiting for the bus a positively warm and fuzzy experience.

human powered bus stop heaters

In Canada, in the middle of one of the coldest winters on record, Duracell installed heaters in some bus shelters. But there was a catch: in order to activate the heaters, bus stop patrons had to complete a circuit by connecting the two sides of the shelter. The shelter walls were too wide for one person to reach both sides – so people waiting at the stop had to cooperate.

In order to connect the two sides and activate the heaters, the folks in the bus shelter held hands. The circuit was complete and the bus waiters got to warm up – and maybe they managed to make a small human connection in the process. The campaign is intentionally a bit sappy, but the technology behind the bus stop warmers is certainly admirable – and very memorable.

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See more in Art of Tech or under Technology. March, 2014.