What are the cute symbols that have appeared on bus stops in Malaga?

For weeks now, a series of symbols have been appearing on Malaga city bus stops in the areas Juan XXIII, Ortega y Gasset and Camino de San Rafael. The eye-catching figures include fairies, combs, decks of cards, elephants... This display has caused confusion among some users, who have contacted this newspaper to ask what it is all about.

In fact, there is speculation in the neighbourhood that it could be an advertising campaign or a marketing action by a company that has contracted these spaces at the bus stops. But nothing could be further from the truth. The real reason is much deeper, as it is an initiative brought in by Malaga city council to promote the integration of people living with some form of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In fact, the project is subsidised by the European Next Generation funds.

Pictograms are visual tools that help people with ASD to communicate, follow routines and to understand their environment better. In this way, the EMT city bus servicce has become involved in facilitating the mobility of these users, essentially by indicating how to get to their destination with this new code of images, according to the Malaga city council.

In accordance with this plan, the municipal company is deploying a network of accessible pictograms on its bus stops to identify landmarks in the surrounding area, the result of a collaboration between the municipal departments of mobility and social rights and associations and entities that promote accessibility such as Aproinla, Teléfono de la Esperanza, Malaga Acoge and the federated society of the deaf.

In this way, Malaga has become the first city to implement a system of this type on all the lines of its urban bus network, which consists of 1,100 stops. The project is part of the second phase of the 'Healthy Malaga' plan which the city council submitted to the Ministry of Transport's Next Generation EU funding call. The planned investment is 45,450 euros (90% from European funds).

When the deployment is completed, all EMT stops will be signposted with pictograms, so that the name of the stop will always be linked to a specific image, something that has been developed exclusively for the city of Malaga, following a criteria for cognitive and perceptual accessibility.

In some cases they are more or less evident, for instance, with the images alluding to medical centres, represented by stethoscopes, crosses and bones, in the area around the Barbarela health centre. This is also the case with a Santa Giulia stop, close to the old prison and symbolised by a picture that is very reminiscent of the historic building. But there are others that aren't so obvious, but still aim to make it easier for people with ASD to know where they're going.

In this case, the logos function as a "proper name", and so a goat and a gnome can be seen at different stops in the area of La Rosa in Ortega y Gasset; a dragon and an elephant (at different points in Tiro de Pichón); a badger and a unicorn (Cruz del Humilladero); a hedgehog (Santa Cristina); an owl (Paseo de los Tilos); cupid (Santa Cristina); a lemon and a mermaid (at different points in Santa Julia); a fairy (Ortega y Gasset); a pack of cards (Camino de San Rafael) and a comb (El Carmen).

In short, the aim is to create a unique and exclusive graphic style that meets the cognitive and perceptive accessibility criteria for those living with ASD. In addition, it integrates semantic and visual elements typical of urban space, culture and local heritage. The company that produced these designs is Tropical SC, based in Zaragoza, which specialises in this type of work and has carried out interactive communication projects for numerous cities and companies.