Abstract

Part 5: Co-design Studies; International audience; To enhance the desirability of public transportation, it is important to design for positive travel experience. The context of bus transportation has broad potential for utilization of novel, supplementary digital services beyond travel information. The aim of our research was to study bus passengers’ needs and expectations for future digital services and to develop initial service concept ideas through co-design. To this end, three Idea generating workshops with 24 participants were arranged. Our findings reveal six service themes that can be used as a basis of designing future digital traveling services: (1) Information at a glance while traveling, (2) Entertainment and entertaining activities, (3) Services that support social interaction, (4) Multiple channels to provide travel information, (5) Extra services for better travel experience, and (6) Services that people already expect to have. The themes are discussed and further elaborated in this paper. Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Abstract

High-Speed Rail (HSR) is a transport mode that operates significantly faster than traditional services, using integrated and specialized rolling stock, and often dedicated tracks. These rapid transit services have profoundly impacted mobility habits on medium-long range journeys, and have also brought about social, economic, and environmental changes in the geographical areas involved. HSR has become a successful “brand”, including not only faster trains, but also a number of other on-board services that increase rail attractiveness (e.g. restaurants, wi-fi connection, free newspapers, cinema, business areas and relaxation lounges). Starting from these considerations, in this research we investigated the conjecture according to which a traveler, in choosing an HSR service to reach a destination (against a traditional rail service, or other competing transport modes), is not only influenced by its original peculiarity as a “faster train” service, but also takes into account the presence of all the “hedonic” characteristics of the service. That said, the literature in transportation modeling has yet to analyze the impact of hedonic quality on travelers’ behavior by quantifying whether and to what extent it increases their propensity to use HSR services. Aim of this research was twofold: i) to quantify, for the first time in the literature, the hedonic value of an HSR service related to a domestic tourist trip, as compared to more conventional levels of service and attractiveness attributes; ii) investigate the domestic tourist attractiveness of the main Italian cities, evaluating which attributes influence the perception of a city as a domestic tourist destination. The application case study consists in the supply of current rail services (HSR vs. traditional) between the 11 main Italian cities in terms of tourist destination. On the basis of an RP&SP survey, carried out among university students at national scale, a binomial logit model was specified with serial correlation in residuals, estimating whether or not the cities in the panel were perceived as possible destinations for a domestic tourist trips made by train. The estimation results show that city-specific attractiveness attributes (entertainment and restaurant rate; number of sites of interests; crime rate), and level of services variables (e.g. travel time and cost; HSR brand ) significantly influence the perception of a city as a possible destination for a domestic tourist trip by train. Furthermore, the average monetary value for the “pure preference” for the HSR brand (faster trains, high frequency, and on-board services) is about 22 Euros/trip, while the hedonic value relative only to on-board services is about 12 Euros/trip , underlining that the “faster train” is only one of the perceived attributes of HSR services. Overall, the willingness to pay for an HSR ticket is up to 40% greater than that for a traditional one. Furthermore, tourists are willing to spend 2.2 h more travelling on an HSR train to reach their destinations. The estimation results show that there is also a “distance traveled effect”; the pure preference for HSR services increases in value from 9 Euros/trip to 13 Euros/trip (+44%) for distances traveled greater than 400 km. If confirmed, these results allow the conclusion to be drawn that the “catchment area” of cities on HSR networks is larger than that served by traditional rail.

Abstract

Today, we live in a world where mobility is a part of the everyday life. At the same time, there is a global need for cities to be smart and sustainable. People spend increasing amounts of time traveling, and thus the development of public transportation services is central for advancing these goals. Transportation services include associated digital services – such as navigation and scheduling services, and various infotainment services. In order to make public transportation services desirable for wide audience, all aspects of the services need to be designed with a focus on the passengers’ and their needs and experiences. While there is a considerable amount of research conducted in the public transportation field, there is a lack of qualitative studies that contribute to the understanding of the travel experience of intra-city bus transportation from the User Experience (UX) point of view. This thesis contributes to the field of human-computer interaction (HCI), with a more specific focus on User Experience (UX) and Human-Centered Design (HCD). In addition, the practical aspects of this research contribute to the field of service design. This thesis also provides a theoretical contribution to the travel experience and transportation field, viewing the topic from human-centered design perspective. This research was conducted over the period of three years between 2016-2019, as a part of the research project Living Lab Bus (LLB). LLB collaboration project with industrial partners. The research on user experience perspective of bus passengers resulted in five publications which form the basis of this compound thesis. This dissertation presents a series of qualitative studies conducted with Research for design approach to gain understanding of intra-city bus passengers’ travel experience. These studies involved a total of 68 bus passengers representing different age groups and backgrounds from two city regions in Finland: Tampere and Helsinki. The preliminary interview study involved 10 international students, a total of 24 international students participated in the idea generation workshops, and representatives of three different user groups: high school students, parents of young children, and pensioners took part to in-depth ideation workshops. A total of 20 people of different ages and backgrounds participated in the bus travel experience study. This study utilised the diary method to collect contextual data of bus passengers’ experience over a three-week period. The goal of this research is two-fold: first, to gain insights of bus passengers’ needs and expectations for intra-city bus related services and to create holistic understanding of the intra-city bus travel experience. This forms the theoretical contribution of the thesis. The second aim of the thesis work was to transform these insights into practical and visual format. This part of the research resulted in a set of design tools, enabling the findings of this research to be utilized by different stakeholders when developing and designing services for the public transportation context. This practical contribution is presented in the form of Travel Experience Toolkit (T-rEX), including four design tools that support the service development in different stages of the design process: 1. Bus Travel Experience Model for understanding the context, 2. Context Cards for diversifying ideation, 3. Passenger Journey Map for exploring service touchpoints, and 4. Experience Personas for getting to know the passengers. These tools bring Human-Centered Design knowhow to different stakeholders working in the transportation context, with the aim to enable the design and development of services that fulfill the needs and expectations of bus passengers. As a final study, we conducted a multi-stakeholder evaluation of T-rEX toolkit with four public transportation stakeholders, to gain understanding of how the toolkit serves different stakeholders in their public transportation service development. The theoretical and practical contributions advance the research and design of future digital services for passengers and can help make public transportation more attractive.

Abstract

This thesis fills a gap in contemporary transport research and planning as it introduces perceived accessibility as a theoretical and methodological concept for incorporating the individual dimension of accessibility in current practice. Perceived accessibility is defined as “how easy it is to live a satisfactory life with the help of the transport system”, and is proposed as a complement to objective measures and understandings of accessibility. The thesis includes three studies. Study I developed a measure for capturing perceived accessibility with a specific transport mode, based on theories and conceptualizations of accessibility. Study II looked at determinants of perceived accessibility, and Study III further developed the measure of perceived accessibility to include actual travel (combinations of transport modes), and explored the relation between perceived accessibility and objectively measured accessibility for the same geographical area in Sweden. In all, the thesis provides background ideas and theory on perceived accessibility, and a validated quantitative approach to capturing perceived accessibility in day-to-day travel. Empirical findings further support the complementary nature of the approach and results indicate that assessments of perceived accessibility may be helpful in determining where to direct interventions aiming at improving accessibility by evaluating different transport modes or different segments of individuals. The method developed for capturing perceived accessibility shows merit in contributing to further theory development on accessibility by its ability to identify determinants of perceived accessibility and its potential in identifying segments of the population that experience significantly lower accessibility than other groups, and thus are at risk of experiencing social exclusion or suffer from transport disadvantage. This thesis introduces perceived accessibility as a theoretical and methodological concept for including the individual dimension of accessibility in transport research and planning. Perceived accessibility is defined as “how easy it is to live a satisfactory life with the help of the transport system”, and as it captures individual experiences and abilities, it is proposed as a complement to objective measures and understandings of accessibility. The thesis includes three studies. Study I developed a measure for capturing perceived accessibility with a specific transport mode, based on theories and conceptualizations of accessibility. Study II looked at determinants of perceived accessibility, and Study III further developed the measure of perceived accessibility to include actual travel (combinations of transport modes), and explored the relation between perceived accessibility and objectively measured accessibility for the same geographical area in Sweden. In all, the thesis provides background ideas and theory on perceived accessibility, a validated quantitative approach to capturing perceived accessibility in day-to-day travel, and empirical findings supporting the complementary nature of the approach and its potential to differentiate between individuals. Mistra SAMS (Sustainable Accessibility and Mobility Services)