Japan’s most beloved cartoon cat will take over a bullet train in her country of origin this summer, luring in locals and tourists alike with pink and white interiors and prime selfie opportunities. West Japan Railway Co. is teaming up with Sanrio to produce the Hello Kitty Shinkansen, a white bullet train wrapped in a pink ribbon motif that will travel between Shin-Osaka station in the Osaka prefecture and Hakata in the Fukuoka prefecture each day. The train will make its debut on June 30th.

The interiors include HELLO! PLAZA in the first car, featuring tactile exhibits on the various regions of northern Japan, a travel-themed presentation, a ‘rest corner,’ a video corner, a photo backdrop and a place to buy those all-important souvenirs. The second car is the KAWAII! ROOM, which is really just the passenger car with special Hello Kitty touches in pastel pink.

And yes, as you’d expect, it’s all very pink. The train will likely be just as much of a destination as a means of travel. While it’s far from the first Hello Kitty-themed train – there’s already a high speed one in Taiwan, and another at Universal Studios Japan – it’s probably the most immersive.

The Washington Metro Transit Authority has quietly rolled out a simple but ingenious wayfinding solution: colored escalator railings to guide passengers to their trains. Graphic designer Jen Scharl spotted the new colored rails Fort Totten. There’s no word yet on other stations — for now this is a test, but it is relatively cost-neutral so it might also be ohe beginning of a new WMATA design strategy. The ones so far deployed appear robust — the colors are embedded, not just painted on.

Of course, using colors, symbols and numbers to guide people through stations is nothing new, but anyone who has rushed between levels to transfer trains knows that these aren’t always easy to spot. Plus, color systems are helpful to people who can’t read the text signage for whateve reasons.

Sometimes, finding a sign takes a few seconds, leaving one looking around at the top (or bottom) of an escalator — now, transit users can simply follow the colors. Colorblind passengers will, of course, still have to rely on conventional signage, but perhaps there is a future iteration of this strategy (yet to be designed or deployed) involving symbols as well as colors.

Systems that have been in place for a long time often get overlooked when it comes to wayfinding innovations — aside from periodic guerrilla interventions, locals know what to do and expect others to figure it out on the fly, so it’s nice to see a proactive new solution playing out in an old context.

As railway systems decay in the United States and flourish elsewhere in the world, works of art pop up in train cars and along disused tracks, paying tribute to the journey of a transportation system in transition. Painted murals display works of art across long distances, interior installations make trips more engaging and projects reclaiming abandoned tracks mull over their history and the scars they leave on the landscape.

Kiev Metro Murals by Okuda San Miguel

For Ukraine’s Independence Day, street artist Okuda San Miguel painted an entire train from the Kiev metro network in his signature style, full of rainbow geometry and the faces of animals and people.

Mobile Garden on Chicago’s Transit System

Chicago’s public transit system was temporarily transformed into a mobile garden for the Art on Track festival, inviting passengers to walk and sit on grass among lush vegetation as they made their way across the city.

Yarn-Bombed Train by Olek

Crochet artist Olek yarn-bombed an entire train, working for two days straight with four assistants to cover an entire locomotive in Lodz, Poland with brightly-colored camouflage-pattern crochet.

Spray-Painted Landscape Along Philadelphia Train Route

Artist Katharina Grosse spray-painted the landscape of one of Philadelphia’s train routes, including abandoned warehouses and stretches of grass, in seven vibrant colors for her large-scale public artwork ‘Psychylustro.’

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Off The Rails 12 Artistic Interventions Of Train Cars Rail Yards

Integrating fairly seamlessly into existing city infrastructure, making use of renewable energy and solving the ‘last mile’ problem plaguing most public transit systems, these designs make some major advancements from the buses and trains already in use today. With some already in development around the world and others representing ideas that could provide inspiration for real-life solutions, these futuristic urban transit systems aim to get around traffic congestion and provide safer, more efficient rides.

Hyperloop for Dubai by Bjarke Ingels Group

Residents of the United Arab Emirates could get from the cities of Dubai to Abu Dhabi in just twelve minutes with the hyperloop transportation system recently announced as a deal between Hyperloop One and Dubai Roads and Transport Authority. Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), the system will carry passengers in 6-person pods contained within a pressure vessel ‘transporter’; the units are small to allow for on-demand travel and reduce wait times.

Self-Driving Bus by Mercedes-Benz

Already tested on a 12-mile route in Amsterdam, Mercedes-Benz’ new line of self-driving buses avoids human error while performing their usual duties, with a driver only present to take over when the route isn’t suitable for automated driving. Short-range radar, satellite-controlled GPS navigation, sensors and cameras help it on its way, and it communicates with the route infrastructure via wi-fi to take advantage of rolling green lights.

Skytran for Tel Aviv

The world’s first magnetically levitating skytTran system is set for development in Tel Aviv to reduce congestion, making routes faster, less expensive, more comfortable and more earth-friendly. Individual two-seater pods feature point-to-point service so travelers can reach specific destinations, and you can request one via a mobile app. Following completion in Tel Aviv, commercial skytrain systems will be rolled out worldwide.

Next Future Modular Transportation System

The self-driving modules envisioned by Next Future can link up like a typical transit system or go their own way on existing roadways, with users ordering them through a mobile app. Like the skyTran, this system takes care of that ‘last mile’ problem, automatically calculating routes. The 8×8’ modules, which hold ten passengers each, can link together in a ‘swarm’ or split up. When they’re linked, you can move from one module to the next to find the one that’s headed in the direction of your destination.

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Navigating The Future 12 Forward Thinking Urban Transit Systems

Commuters traveling from Gare Saint-Lazare to Vernon-Giverny in France get to gaze up at a selection of impressionist art from the Musée d’Orsay applied right onto the walls and ceilings of their train cars. The SNCF (French National Railway Company) collaborated with the adhesive experts at 3M for a summer-long installation that will make rail travel a lot more beautiful and relaxing. Three double-height cars on the RER line have been altered for the project, photographed by Christophe Recoura so the rest of the world can catch a glimpse, too.

An adhesive graphic film printed with impressionist scenes was carefully applied to immerse train travelers in these serene compositions starring the vague painterly brush strokes the movement is known for. Each car has its own theme: gardens and water, local landscapes or Paris industrialization.

This particular line serves visitors heading to Normandy, the birthplace of Impressionism and home of the annual Impressionist Festival. Sight-seers can gaze up at works by painters like Claude Monet as they travel to his former home in Giverny or to the André Malraux Museum (MuMa), which hosts the second-largest collection of Impressionist works in the world after the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

In fact, a long-serving steam train line direct from Paris to Normandy is credited with encouraging artists to travel to that lush, peaceful corner of France in the first place as Normandy became home to a new school of open-air painting. The trains carried the artists, their families and their aristocratic clientele back and forth between the two cities, delivering them from the modern metropolis to a countryside full of cliffs, meadows and Gothic cathedrals.