Designing With Web - Part 3: week 1

Remake public transport experience for seniors with Internet of Things

Group "120"

Project 1: A watch that takes care senior people's security when they are on public transportation

Context

when? where? who? why?

Today, more than ever, Europe is, and will be challenged with demographic shifts within the coming decades. In fact, the EU’s population aged 65 years old and over is expected to double between 1995 and 2050. This will have a massive impact on public transportation especially with 22.2% the share of population aged 65 and more.

An increasing share of older people is living alone. This is due to societal and cultural changes. As a consequence, elderly people lack support from their relatives or partners, and usually have to travel alone. In classic terms, trip planning, decisions, ticketing, orientation in the stations and on-trip are more difficult for senior passengers than younger ones. Information may appear confusing or insufficient to them ; particularly when challenged with service deviations , old people may feel unsettled. Fear of accidents and harrassment, but also misbehaviour of staff are also important issues among senior people and often prevent them from using public transport.

From here came the idea of Easy travel bracelet, dedicated to make life easier and remake the public transportation experience for seniors using Internet of things.

Target

for whom?

So, our customers will be seniors that are afraid to take public transport because they may feel unsafe in it. It concerns people who are more than 65 years old who also may feel isolated. Maps of public transport are often complicated to understand at first sight so our watch will guide them toward the city.

Service offered

what? how?

The idea of our project would a connected watch which will assure their safety in public transport. Our watch has a sensor to monitor it’s owner’s healthy status by comparing those very important index but also is connected to the whole city emergency facilities through IoT technology.

When the senior person encounters any accident, for example, he or she falls down when there is an urgent stop the watch will call nearest hospital or emergency center as soon as it makes sure its owner needs help from professional doctors by measuring those index, physical functions, the owner's position and so on. Indeed our watch will be equipped with an accelerometer sensor and a gyrometer sensor which will immediately notice when the senior is falling.

Also, this watch will give medical suggestions taking from internet on site to its owner and the people around the owner how to act properly.

By pressing on another button, you can also call police are shortcut to call relatives.

Finally, to have a more comfortable trip in public transportation a voice command will be added to the watch. This will allows for seniors who can’t read well to follow a human voice. This voice wil notice the senior whenever he or she have to get out of the subway or bus staion. Using technology and internet, the watch will know which way you have to take to go to a point A to a point B to have a safe trip. For example, taking stations with fewer stairs or stations equipped with elevators.

Identity

describe the universe around your service by creating a mood board and name your service accordingly

Benchmark

List concurrents / relative projects and describe how they relate/differentiate to your project

References

books/films/articles/...

Easy travel application

Context

when? where? who? why?

Public transport are not always accessible, available, nor sure. Moreover seniors have some difficulty to move and take less and less public transport. For them, they are not comfortable, they are afraid to fall from the trots or in subway car because it isn’t stable. There isn’t also a lot benches for waiting at bus stations or too many stairs in metro station for example. How can this experience of public transport for senior could improve ? This question is very important notably in France where 1 out of 3 people is considered as senior. Markets are now forced to adapt.

Seniors need to feel safe and comfortable and because of all these problems they take less and less public transport. Seniors are more and more friendly with the technology and we notice that 1 out of 4 seniors is using a connected object. The use of internet of things could be a solution to upgrade these experiences in public transport.

The interest of internet of things applied to public transport will help seniors to stay active and break with isolation. It will also be cheaper and more eco-friendly to use public transport than their own cars. Moreover, public transport often offer a special price for people beyond 60 years old. They will feel safer thanks to the connected object which will automatically updated.

Target

for whom?

The target customers are seniors who retire from office and who not take public transport because they feel in danger. Those seniors like traveling, but their current traveling demands cannot be fully satisfied. We try to target seniors who used to take publictransport but are no longer feeling safe due to stations not very adapted for them. We also want to target seniors who feel isolated and alone and who want to meet new people and do more activities outside.
The target customers also can be the youth who care about their parents' retired life and who register their own parents in this app.

Service offered

what? how?

Our second idea would be an app on smartphone. We totally understand that seniors are not very attracted by public transport when they see a stairs with 100 steps without any escalator or elevator. Our application will index all the station or lines adapted for seniors with adapted equipment such as escalators, elevator or a step to help you get in the bus.

Also our application will put in touch seniors with young or adult people to help them take public transport like a social media. Senior could send a message to a person which is available on the platform and who live near he or she and they will travel together. Senior will feel safer and if there is a problem the accompanying person would know what to do and which way to go.

This application has another impact on life of seniors because this app create a social link between people and will break with their isolation. They could of course stay in contact in the future for more trips or any service.

Identity

describe the universe around your service by creating a mood board and name your service accordingly

Benchmark

List concurrents / relative projects and describe how they relate/differentiate to your project

References

books/films/articles/...