iBeacons helping the visually impaired to navigate

In an earlier blog we talked about some of the uses of iBeacon technology.  In this piece from the BBC, TfL are trialling their use in combination with a smartphone app to provide accurate walking instructions to the visually impaired.

View the video > http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-31757593

When we did our research work for Guide Dogs for the Blind a couple of years ago, this kind of application was clearly something that would be of value in supporting wayfinding and travel.  It's only now as this technology for accurate indoor location finding becomes more available that such apps can be developed and put into action.

Joined up journeys

One of the advantages that the car has over public transport is that it takes the passenger from A – B, door to- door, no changes, no hassle. So as well as being the ultimate consumer product, it is also convenient and easy. But with the costs of motoring rising, and roads becoming more congested, the car is losing much of its shine. Urban planners are focused on reducing the number of private vehicles on the road, and getting travellers onto the public transport network. The challenge for transport operators is how to give travellers as easy and comfortable a journey as possible.

One element that would improve the experience and encourage the shift from private to public transport would be to improve the interchange between different stages in the passenger journey. The need to interchange can arouse strong emotions in passengers – it is something we’d rather avoid, it’s a moment of stress and uncertainty, it is a point where we see the difference in service quality between the different parts of our journey. Rarely have different operators invested in eliminating the gaps created where two systems come together.

And complete journey is the important concept. That is what we take. But on public transport different legs are provided by different operators and take different forms. But each has to work and work together for the journey to pan out.

The success of transport is about multi-modal systems and making them work effectively. In the UK great steps are being taken to integrate; in particular, HS2 offers opportunities to create seamless interchanges which will be necessary to make the high-speed, high volume, high frequency network operate reliably.  HS2 has been designed from the ground-up with the needs of passengers at the very heart of the trains and station interchanges.  In the Middle East places like Jeddah are building a whole transport system in one go. Future smart cities thinking may provide a platform to support all of this.

So getting it right is about understanding those joins but across the piece – architecture & space, service, information, etc. If we are to do interchange better they need to work seamlessly together and be passenger focused – transport in the UK is run as a commercial enterprise by individual organisations – hence interchange doesn’t go as far as services waiting for a delayed inbound service. However, as transport operators are increasingly seeing the commercial value in being more passenger focussed , there is the prospect of change for the better when collaboration between operators can deliver better interchanges within a successful commercial model.

It’s about how we better support journey planning. At the moment we still have to interact with each provider – we can’t buy a door-to-door journey ticket. But why not? We don’t get many opportunities when the interchange is free – e.g. in London if you make a journey by tube and

then transfer to bus you pay twice…why? By contrast, Hong King has the Octopus card which does have the ability to allow free interchange to a certain extent. Data is supporting the whole journey planner although these are more often provided by third parties rather than the actual service providers.

At the moment technology doesn’t really support interchange in any meaningful way. We might have

some token efforts to provide some information displays say in a station about the bus or metro service. The passenger has to do the work to get real-time information. More apps are being developed, again usually by third parties. But there are no real mechanisms to help passengers respond to problems in real-time, or to rebook a leg of the journey, for example. Integrated ticketing and data is needed.

There are also opportunities for smarter technology. For example, if “the system” knows you are getting off at a station to transfer to the local tram system, then a smart system might reserve your train ticket to put you in a carriage near the right exit at the station. There is a great opportunity to support passengers better and great more personalized and adaptive services.

Then there is the physical environment – how does the architecture and urban space help?

Fundamental is good wayfinding but that can be extended into providing better  information before arrival – such as the process for queuing for taxi ranks which varies from one location to another.

As new stations and airports are developed, they are usually well designed to accommodate future anticipated growth in capacity. They sometimes perform less well in accommodating future interchange growth – so the taxi rank or bus stops or cycle racks don’t have similar space

to grow.

Often the problem for passengers is it doesn’t feel like a single ecosystem. Each operator brand their bit differently, has a different operational model so it behaves differently as the passenger views it and critically the service quality will vary. The experience of say arriving on a Virgin train and transferring to the tube or a bus puts you into two very different experiences.

Key messages – getting interchange right is key to great customer experience; making it work for passengers means seeing it as an integrated journey and therefore focus on the joins; all the bits have to work in harmony and this requires a change in service attitude (providing a graceful & planned handover rather than being dumped on the pavement!). The lesson service providers must learn is to look beyond their own boundaries are consider the passengers journey end-end – that means looking outwards rather than just within.

Is the ticket dead?

The news that London Underground are to close ticket offices (www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-25025888) is set to change the nature of the "ticket" and the interaction between operator and customer.

The days of the little bit of paper clutched in our hands are clearly numbered.  Tickets moving onto our smart mobile devices creates a range of opportunities to enhance the passenger experience by offering a more joined-up, journey-orientated service.

With a ticket on a smartphone, the operator knows who you are.  This could be an enabler for more personalised and individual services.  Preferences, likes & dislikes can all be remembered and bookings and offers tailored accordingly.

The operator might also know where you are.  This might allow individual travel information to be pushed to you as you enter the station - "Welcome to King's Cross, your 12.43 train to York is running 5 minutes late and will be ready for boarding in 10 minutes from Platform 6".

Knowing where you are could help eliminate the current advance booking of seats that sit empty for the journey.  The system would only allocate the seat as you enter the station.  This could also provide more flexibility for you to change seats or even change which train you are going to get.  This could be the end of the ticket barrier too - no need to go through a gate as the "station" knows that everyone on the platform is a valid ticket holder.  No more ticket inspections?  Wouldn't that be nice.

This kind of consist information could be really useful to train operators who currently have no idea who is on their train.  It can help with ensuring passengers are spread through the train and enable a range of new personalised services to be offered on-board.

The removal of the ticket office could change the nature of the interaction between passenger and staff.  The current mode is very "over the counter" and is transactional in nature.  Removing the physical separation might allow more of a personal concierge-style service to be provided which is of more value to passengers.

The only loss is the old romance of that collectable bit of paper.  But that probably disappeared long ago anyway.

Let's hope that as this technology becomes more widespread, operators take the opportunity to provide genuinely better services to passengers and do more than get rid of some staff, sell us a ticket and push loads of advertising to our phones.

What is "Passenger Experience"?

Passenger experience has become a hot topic in public transport especially for airports.  Major airports are putting it at the centre of their thinking - for example, the mission statement for Heathrow Airport is making every journey better.  But what does it actually mean?

Is it more than the latest bandwagon for every vendor of products and services to jump onto claiming that their product will guarantee to improve the passenger experience?

In an increasingly competitive transport environment, operators and providers are clearly seeing it as a way to improve their offer and attract more passengers and increase revenue.

The revolution in social media means that customer feedback on that “experience” is loud and public.  The reputation of the service provide or operator is quickly formed and changed on the basis of how it delivers the experience.  So they are right to take it seriously.

This should mean that it is more than a gimmick or a trend but something that is at the heart of the design of environments, products, staff roles, etc - all the touchpoints with the service.  Passenger experience should be the thing that unites the various elements of the airport or station.  We think it is an area where design research and design thinking need to be at the centre of the approach to getting it right.

There are a number factors here...
1. Understand the passenger as a person  
This is more than market research of “what do they want”.  This is about understanding behaviours now and predicting needs into the future.   This is often done using broad groups of user types with the assumption that there is commonality - there is no such thing that as the “business traveller” for example.  Our needs as passengers are complex, dynamic and individual.  It’s also never the same as how the designer sees the world.

2. What is an experience?
Is it about services and things we can do at the airport?  Or is it actually about how we feel…feelings about stress, security,…attitudes, beliefs, perceptions…how do the things we interact with make us feel?  How does the total interaction make us feel rather than just the elements?

3. Join it up
It’s about the door-to-door journey and therefore it needs to be joined up.  The passenger won’t remember the great check-in experience if security was awful.  It's about getting the whole journey right and making sure the different services work together.  That’s why the gimmicks and the isolated bits of “passenger experience” technology don’t work.

4.  High performing passengers
Delivering a great experience often demands that passengers honour their side of the bargin and do things like have their ticket ready or get their bags ready for inspection.  But we have to help them to know this in a way they will receive and understand.  We also have to make sure that the desired behaviours don’t go against what people would naturally do.  Otherwise we face an uphill battle.

5. It’s about more than shopping. 
Retail is great and lots of us love shopping (and of course it's handy for revenue).  But it is clearly only one part of the experience we have of a transport system and it is the wider system we remember.

6. Get the basics right.
Without providing the basic services, the high value or memorable services will be forgotten.  The temptation is to go for some high profile interventions or add some great new technology.  But if the toilets are dirty, the staff unhelpful or absent, the ticket machine out of order, none of the flashy stuff will make any difference.

7. Put the passenger needs first…
…and sacrifice some of your needs.  A great example is how free wi-fi is currently delivered.  If it’s free, as a user, why do I have to register and log-on each time?  This is providing an irritating step in the process purely for the benefit of the service provider (presumably marketing information).  Why can’t it just connect?  So challenge how the operation works, but doesn’t help the passenger.  From the passenger’s point of view, these operational factors are usually invisible or not understood so will do nothing but annoy - their perception is what counts

8. Make the experience feel human.  
The world is complex, crowded and fast paced.  The memorable experiences are often in the personal touches and the small things, the details.  Someone going out of their way to help (rather than confirming to a company policy) or just being useful, for example.  Technology and shopping have their place but get the human stuff right first.

So what does "passenger experience" mean to you?

Influencing modal shift in transport systems

Sometimes to get people to make different choices about how they travel you have to make things easy for passengers.  This usually means think about transport in a connected way and looking at what people need and want and what might be barriers.

So great example here from Germany.  Cyclists often use another mode of transport as part of their journey - interaction with trams and railways is often constrained by the lack of space for cyclists to store their bike on-board and therefore be able to continue their journey on bike when they reach the destination.

The solution? Provide better storage...

Future of mobility and customer service

Following on from some of our previous posts on customer service and service design, an interesting article from the President of Hertz International on the BBC website on the future of mobility.

The interesting point is his view that technology is changing the way we view and access transport.  Individual car ownership is being challenged with many more options available.  He points out that transport providers have to earn loyalty and our business...and that it is customer service that will determine the choices people make.  Interestingly he also notes the importance of the human element of the service.

All chimes in with our view that you have to deliver a human experience and that consumers still value the human touch in their interactions.  Have a read...