The Olympics and designing for the visitor experience

Visiting the Olympic Park and other venues for the Olympics and the Paralympics, a clear winner was how brilliantly managed they have been from the visitor perspective.  What lessons might be learned for airports, railway stations or other public spaces?

The main pitfall that was avoided was long queues.  There was much in the press before the games about the likelihood of long queues at venues (and at the airports!) especially for security.  But those fears were unfounded.  The uncomfortable truth for other organisations is that this was because of the level of human resources that were deployed at manning gates and security areas etc.  With lots of gates and lines in operation, the throughput of people has been sufficient to have almost no queing.  The Olympics were obviously able to draw about a vast army of volunteers in the wonderful Games Makers as well as the armed forces (and G4S!) for the security areas.  More commercial organisations do not have these resources which is why there is currently a drive in airports, supermarkets, etc for self-service.

However the second truth is that the experience for visitors in using the venues has been enhanced by the fact that the security areas and gates and other points of potential congestion have been manned by real people. As visitors, we often don't actually want to interact with a machine (whose usability has probably been poorly designed anyway) - kiosks and other devices offer a second best option.

The other key for the Olympics is that those people have been enthusiastic, welcoming, happy and a joy to interact with.  Again, this is difficult for operators in airports etc: the Games Makers and other Olympic staff were highly motivated, part of an experience themselves and only had to maintain their levels of positivity for a few weeks.

But both of these show the difference that can be made to the passenger/visitor experience if there is still interaction with real people and those people are positive and helpful.  A real challenge for a day-to-day service delivery.

Railway stations as a destination

At the recent Railway Terminal Conference in Vienna, the focus was on what can railway stations learn from airports and how can the passenger experience be enhanced?  It is clear that railway stations, at least the mainline stations, have come a long way from being the dirty, unattractive places of years ago.  With the opening of St Pancras International and the new King's Cross concourse in London, the integration of iconic architecture and historic buildings are providing wonderful spaces to start or end journeys.

But many of the speakers at the conference suggested that the next step was to make railway stations a destination in their own right rather than just part of a journey.  Making them more meaningful in terms of their place in the city - something that airports can't achieve.  The intent is to bring more people into the station who actually don't get on a train.

But there was little insight into how this improved the passenger experience.  Making stations a "destination" seems to translate into different and varied "commercial offers" - i.e. shopping.  Whether its eating and drinking or buying stuff, this seems to be what the operators want (you can see the financial rationale!).

What this seems to fail to acknowledge is that this adds little value to the travelling passenger.  In fact the risk of all these shoppers and retail outlets cluttering up the stations seems to be significant.

What was totally absent from the discussion, was how you enhance the door to door experience of the railway passenger.  Not much has changed in this area other than being able to buy tickets in advance on-line.

Where is the innovation?  Next door at the airport Passenger Terminal Expo, everything was about changing the experience of for the passenger.  Sure there was plenty about retail but loads more about self-service check-in, bag drop,  security, boarding etc.  In other words doing things differently.

So what can the railway industry do to enhance the passenger experience other than designing majestic stations?

Improved Passenger Experience with Smartphone Technology

Alongside improving the design of airports, providing simpler wayfinding, and making the security process less stressful, the ever present smartphone seems to be the battleground for providing better information to the passenger at a number of points on the journey.

This article from the Amor Group presents a good summary of the current applications and uses for smartphone technology.  Worth a quick read:

Smartphones as an Enabler for Improved Passenger Experience

Airport security - follow up

As a follow up to the last post on airport security and the passenger experience, our John Wood wrote an article for Security Middle East magazine covering this area.  Have a look at the article on our website: http://www.ccd-hf.co.uk/p/Press-Articles/

Improving the passenger experience of airport security

Those who have been getting some sun over Christmas or for the rest of us starting to think about booking our summer holidays (or those just trying to get to the next meeting) the issue of airport security can send a shudder down the spine. It has to be one of the least enjoyable aspects of any trip (marginally ahead of waiting for the bus in the rain in the long stay car park or the fun of the Piccadilly Line out to Heathrow!). But fortunately airport operators know this and are all becoming much more focused on our experience as passengers. So improving the experience of getting through security is high on the priority list.

In the States, groups have started to suggest that the future lies in getting screening technology out there much of which is still in early development at the moment. Certainly for the passenger if this does anything to reduce queues then it has one tick. Individual body scanners are becoming more common at airports but there are still concerns around issues like privacy. Sorting these are key to getting user acceptance and delivering the enhanced passenger experience that is wanted.

The other approach is not about the physical environment and technology but reducing the number of people who are screened. It is contentious but in the States again they are taking the first steps towards profiling and offering faster screening for pre-approved passengers. Other schemes are being developed that reduce screening of children and allow aircraft staff to bypass screening all together. Many are questioning how foolproof such approaches can be.

In the end improving the security processes are likely to be mostly about technology but to get the technology working, being effective and accepted by the travelling public, the human elements of the design and implementation must be kept at the front of the process.

What will airports of the future look like - a passenger perspective

Following on from the last post is this video from the BBC on the airports of the future: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/fast_track/9443769.stm. 

The piece is based around the premise that in 20 years time passenger numbers will double to pass 12 billion so airports and cities will have to cope with more people using and working in them.  One suggestion has been the "aerotropolis" - a city with the airport at its centre rather than on its fringes as they are at present.

The video raises lots of interesting possibilities but for us we are most interested in the human side of how passengers will use these changing, growing airports.

One of the keys seems to be the notion of airports that are designed to be big rather than what we have at the moment which are airports that grow incrementally or remain too small for the passenger numbers.  An interesting challenge to keep an airport still feeling manageable and navigable.  Maybe you need will need to divide the space up into many more smaller terminals and keep the distance from your arriving transport to plane as small as possible.

Clearly technology will play its part.  One can envisage technologies like electronic paper providing a ticket or boarding card that is interactive and actually helps direct you from entry to gate.

New ways of providing transit for people across and around the airport will be required as the walking distances will be too big.  Again this might mean lots of different ways into the airport whilst providing an environment that isn't too confusing - not easy!

As the video pointed out if we think the hassle of security is bad now one can imagine that it won't get better without a step change in the technology.  New scanning technologies that can speed up the security process will emerge but need to well designed to be usable by staff so that the human interaction isn't something that slows it all down again.

Holograms to help you get through airport security?

Luton Airport are introducing holographic helpers to advise passengers and help them to get through the security checks more easily and efficiently.



An interesting concept. As we all know airport security is confusing and stressful.  There are an array of signs trying to tell  us what to do but trying to absorb this information in this situation is difficult - so we usually fail to do so, further increasing the stress of the uncertainty.

Perhaps the ideal would be just to have more staff on duty but the repition of information is something people aren't great at doing - certainly not with any enthusiasm - and we have to recognise that the cost would be high.

People are best for responding to questions and dealing with odd events.  So it would seem that something like these holograms, that can deliver the basic information in a more absorbable way, may have something going for them.

Anyone going through Luton Airport that sees them in operation, please do comment with your views.