Design and Envision Accessible Transportation for People with Disabilities- Part 1
As part of Service & Experience design workshop, we were given a design brief by our facilitator Naveen to design and envision a sustainable livelihood platform for people with disabilities. Our group includes Parth Khandekar, Sneha Munot, Somya Sagarika, Syiam Dhingra from Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology and Aditi gupta from IIIT Bangalore. This work is part of first week of workshop “Mapping & Seeing”. We as a team focused on accessible transportation for people with disabilities, where we have looked at existing service and systems, user journeys, policies, touch-points and identified gaps in current system.
Design Brief
Design brief intent to understand the current life-journey, and select one of the stages / doors. Unpack and map the service-system around the specific stage, find stakeholders, and gaps in the system. Formulate a design vision through service and experience design thinking to enable a sustainable system addressing the gaps of the chosen stage. Explore conceptually the role of digital platforms to enable and sustain such system.
Life journey of PwD’s designed by organization Enable India gave us an overview of challenges faced at different stages. Organization has done an incredible work in the field education and learning of PwD’s. A well defined learning structure, months of training, backed by technology has made several PwDs employable.
We identified ‘Accessible transportation’ for PwDs as a key area specially since it was complementary to Enable India’s work on education and learning of PwD’s. We decided to deep dive and address the specific challenges in ‘Reaching place of education’ to add value to the overall journey of PwDs who are in pursuit of education. Our attempt will be to broaden the scope of this project in future by applying and extending our understanding to the larger problem of commute for PwDs.
Mapping & Seeing
Understanding Current Policies and Systems
This activity focused on identifying the types of disabilities under “The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2016”. We identified modes of transportation and various services currently working under it.
Intention
To understand whether the current system is catering to needs of all the disabilities under the act.
- People with disability are currently commuting using various mode of transportation?
- What are the challenges faced by them at various level?
- What works have been done so far at transportation level for PwDs.
- What are the different products available in the markets which support the users to use the public transport system?
Learning
This activity helped us in identifying accessibility and space standards for inclusive transportation system. Existing product based solutions caters to only a specific set of disabilities and hence are not inclusive in nature.
1. METRO JOURNEY
Research
User- Wheelchair bound
Background- While going to college one day he met with an accident and lost his leg. He is wheelchair bound now and commutes college everyday using metro.
Description- User’s cousin drops him everyday at metro station gate, from their he travels on his own. At entry gate a security personnel accompanies him till the point he boards.
Intention- Key focus of the activity was to understand the challenges faced by user on day to day basis.
- What are key touch-points during the journey?
- What are the different parameters he has to keep in mind to reach on time?
- What could lead to increase in travel time?
- At what points metro infrastructure plays a role in the journey?
- At policy level what has been implemented and what yet to be implemented?
Experience Mapping
In experience mapping we identified moments of the tasks, captured experience in order to understand what they are perceiving. To make sense out of task we identified emotion behind each interaction to highlight problems and opportunities.
Gaps
- Accessibility during peak hours. During peak hours it is difficult to find accessible area inside the train. They are in continuous fear of being pushed behind while trying to get in.
- No guiding paths inside metro. Unavailability of guiding path do not cater to the accessibility needs of PWDs.
- Website/App Accessibility. Both Website and App of metro doesn’t have information on accessibility guidelines and facilities available for PWDs.
- Ticket Counter. Ticket counter not being accessible from seating height may increase in travel time.
Learning
Employee sensitization plays a critical role in accessible transportation for PwDs. It requires state to train employees to enable them to meet the needs of the disabled. Appointing special guides and assistants for helping the disabled can also enhance the overall experience. Not having proper signage and voice feedback can lead to increase in travel time.
2. BUS JOURNEY
Research
Our research consists secondary data collection where we tried to understand that how does the College bus and BMTC system works for PwD’s. Then the research was mapped into user journeys, touch-points, existing system mapping and experience mapping.
User Journey
In this, secondary research was done considering different types of users and how they access it. Users with physical disability, cerebral palsy and visually impaired were our main concern. We tried to understand how PwD college students commute, what are the challenges and problems they come across to reach their final destination.
Gaps
- Ramps connecting the roads and footpaths are uneven making it hard for the wheelchair users to access it.
- It is very hard for physically disabled users to get in and get out of the bus in the peak hour.
- The bus drivers are very impatient with PwD usually leaving them behind.
- There is no space for the wheelchair users to fit themselves inside the bus.
Learning
After collecting the data on problems and challenges, we realized that the main gap is in the infrastructure of public transport which does not make it accessible for PwD. Also, it is very important to sensitize the drivers, conductors and people around and educate them about this issue.
Touch-Point Mapping
If we want to improve interactions of PwD passengers and transport system for their accessibility the key starting point is to understand what those interactions are, where they take place and what is going wrong. Without that understanding it would be impossible to measure any improvements or to see if there are any changes which are need to be done. So here, we mapped out the touch-points to identify the gaps between PwD college students and product or service they are using.
System/service mapping
We mapped out and explored the existing system/service which is helping out the PwD to travel through the public transport.
What does the current system do?
Accessible Auroville project is basically a Tata CityRide Marcopolo bus with 12 seats which was taken to Karur district of Tamil Nadu, where vehicles can be customized. There they got a double door entrance installed at the rear of the bus. Then they took it to Chennai to get a platform with a lift installed at that door, for wheelchairs etc. to be moved into the bus. Some seats inside the bus have been removed to make place for wheelchair users.
Gaps
- This service mainly concentrates on wheelchair users.
- It does not operate in Bangalore yet which means there is lack of awareness of new technology that can make life of differently abled people a bit easier.
Experience Mapping
With the help of our secondary data, we mapped out the experience of college student who is traveling to the college with his crutches.
Learning
This activity helped us understand that employee and people sensitization plays a critical role in accessible transportation for PwDs. Also, bus stops should have a proper queue so that PwDs do not get pulled back.
3. AUTO JOURNEY
Research
This is the transportation system which has been there for years. This is one of the convenient modes of transportation. But is the case same for the PWDs?The journey above shows the PWD trying to get an auto to reach his college.
Experience Mapping
User- 3 blind people
Background- They are visually impaired by birth, live together and commute to college using an auto rickshaw.
Intention- The key focus of the activity was to understand the challenges faced by the trio on the day to day basis.
1.What are the touch-points?
2. What are the different parameters they have to keep in mind to reach on time?
3.What could lead to increase in travel time?
4. The environmental impact on their journey and the opportunities.
Gaps
- Insufficient Space: Though this is the most affordable vehicle there isn’t enough space for people with physical disability.
- Extra Charges: Since it is not possible for the visually impaired to understand the meter reading, often they have to pay more or fight for the right price.
- Limitations of App Based Services: Often it happens that it is not easy for the users to use the applications and they struggle with the usability of the app. Also not all of them have awareness about it.
4. CAB JOURNEY
Bengaluru population uses cabs as one of the means of transport to commute to their daily scheduled destinations . Uber , Ola and Meru are the most popular service providers currently in Bengaluru. With the implication of Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2016 and also the growing disabled population these service providers have started launching specialized services for them and some new players like Kickstart cabs have launched their services in the market.
So as a group we looked into these services and tried to find gaps in the existing system.
Services offered by Meru Cabs
Services offered by Uber
Research
- Uber has two key offerings to cater to the disabled population in Bengaluru . It offers Uber Access and Uber Assist options .
- UberASSIST is an option for those who require additional assistance such as senior citizens and people with accessibility needs, including those who may just feel more comfortable with extra assistance when getting from door-to- door uberACCESS is a forward-facing wheelchair accessible product. This option offers 50 retrofitted vehicles, with heightened roof and hydraulic wheelchair lift on-demand.
The above two descriptions are based on the information given on Uber India
Website.
Services Offered by Kickstart Cabs
The above map shows a journey when a disabled person in Bengaluru books a cab through the Mobile Application service provided by Kickstart cabs.
Journey Mapping
After mapping the most widely used cab transportation systems we starting putting it altogether in order to make sense of what will happen when a disabled college student will book a cab in order to reach the place of education.
Touch-points
Gaps
- The service offered charges minimum Rs 200 for 4 km and thereafter the charges are on per km basis which is quite uneconomical for the college
students. - Also these services are not available in all regions of Bengaluru yet which poses a hindrance to students living in other areas.
- Right now these services considers only a small set of disabled persons majorly visually impaired, wheelchair bound and Deaf .
- The service is still unreachable to a large chunk of other disabled people.
- Kickstart cabs does not take responsibility for any health emergencies or concerns of the passengers traveling with them.
Learning
- The Responsibility of an accessible transportation system does not end with reaching the doors of the place of education. Reaching to the classroom is in itself a major task for a disabled person so who should take the responsibility of it is a question that needs to be asked out loud , it can be either the service provider or either the stakeholders of the
system of the place of education. - Unless and Until the service is not economical for students it is not
sustainable and also the service is not at all inclusive as it has been designed specially for a “certain group of people” which is far from the principle of inclusion in a society.
Conclusion
After analysing the gaps and having a fair understanding on current systems, most of the services which are there right now are not pwd friendly. Even though they are considered universal, they are not inclusive.Not just the services as a product but also the infrastructure or the environment around the services needs to be changed. Inclusive transportation policies have been made but are currently not in practice. And we need one system design which will bring all these services together and will allow them to work in synchronization.
