This paper examines the cascading effects of technical failures in transit, focusing on the challenges faced by bus operators when communication, passenger-facing, and mechanical technologies fail.Through a diary study, we gather operator accounts of critical tools like radios, mobile data terminals (MDTs), payment systems, and ramps, alongside their failures.Issues like radio outages, GPS malfunctions, and broken fare systems lead to operational delays, safety risks, and increased stress.Triaging breakdowns becomes crucial to operations and drivers adapt by using personal phones in emergencies, highlighting gaps in system integration.As transit electrifies its fleets and considers a wider range of innovations, these failures offer key insights into the challenges ahead, emphasizing the need for robust, adaptable systems that ensure operational continuity and protect worker well-being amid rapid technological change.

In North America, bus operators are essential but undervalued public servants — the ''human infrastructure'' of public transit. Transit workers face a range of largely invisible health and safety issues that have worsened in recent years. As more attention is directed toward new technologies being commercialized in the sector these operational challenges remain largely unaddressed. Our paper contributes to a turn ''back to labor'' and describes issues bus operators face on the job. Through a diary study of bus operators' working conditions we detail how punctuated moments of workplace violence, inhumane scheduling, and unsafe operational conditions become prolonged infrastructural failure. We outline how CSCW researchers and practitioners can contribute to the design of transit systems that enhance worker dignity and contribute to ongoing efforts to address urgent health and safety concerns.

This paper describes how the circumstances bus operators manage presents unique challenges to the feasibility of high-level automation in public transit. Avoiding an overly rationalized view of bus operators’ labor is critical to ensure the introduction of automation technologies does not compromise public wellbeing, the dignity of transit workers, or the integrity of critical public infrastructure. Our findings from a group interview study show that bus operators take on work — undervalued by those advancing automation technologies — to ensure the well-being of passengers and communities. Notably, bus operators are positioned to function as shock absorbers during social crises in their communities and in moments of technological breakdown as new systems come on board. These roles present a critical argument against the rapid push toward driverless automation in public transit. We conclude by identifying opportunities for participatory design and collaborative human-machine teaming for a more just future of transit.

Recent investments in automation and AI are reshaping the hospitality sector. Driven by social and economic forces affecting service delivery, these new technologies have transformed the labor that acts as the backbone to the industry-namely frontline service work performed by housekeepers, front desk staff, line cooks and others. We describe the context for recent technological adoption, with particular emphasis on algorithmic management applications. Through this work, we identify gaps in existing literature and highlight areas in need of further research in the domains of worker-centered technology development. Our analysis highlights how technologies such as algorithmic management shape roles and tasks in the high-touch service sector. We outline how harms produced through automation are often due to a lack of attention to non-management stakeholders. We then describe an opportunity space for researchers and practitioners to elicit worker participation at all stages of technology adoption, and offer methods for centering workers, increasing transparency, and accounting for the context of use through holistic implementation and training strategies.