Subway Seat Finder
Ceiling LEDs that tell you exactly where the empty seats are — before you walk past them all.
🚇 Car 4, live demo
Click any seat to flip it between empty and taken — the ceiling strip reacts like the real idea. Riders board randomly via the button below.
In the real train, sensors under the seats feed a central ceiling display: green glows and arrows point toward the free rows as you walk down the aisle.
Why people love it
Everyone who rides transit has done the futile walk: you scan two cars of seated commuters, find nothing, and retreat to the pole — only to watch someone else claim the seat you just passed. This idea fixes the blindness that causes it. Instead of guessing, the ceiling of every car carries a strip of indicator lights tied to sensors under the seats. Open seats glow green from above, so you can read the whole car like a parking garage and head straight to an empty row.
People love it because it turns a lottery into a plan. A quick glance tells you the front-left block is clear, so you pick the right door to board through in the first place. It quietly spreads people through the car too, which means fuller-looking platforms and less bottlenecking at the doors. Transit agencies already run sensors for weight, doors, and traction — reading seats is a small add-on with a daily payoff for millions of riders.
The demo above shows the concept on one car in miniature. Flip a few seats to “taken”, watch the LEDs react, and imagine glancing up on a busy morning instead of shuffling sideways through a whole carriage.