New mobility
modes, increasing urban congestion, an influx of data, and needs for expanded
mobility services and access are forcing cities to reevaluate the way they
design and manage the public way. Students at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Innovation
Center
explored
how technology can address these and other mobility challenges rising in cities
across the world through the two-semester IXD class from Fall 2019 to Spring
2020. IXD, short for Interdisciplinary (Product/Service/Experience)
Development, brings together undergraduate and occasional graduate students
from the Design, Engineering, and Marketing disciplines work together to solve
real-world problems with our partners.
This
year, we partnered with City Tech
Collaborative
for the first time, in conjunction with Bosch
, HERE Technologies
, and Microsoft
, to
improve the public transit experience for Chicagoans. Over the course of the
year we saw students learn what mobility means, progress to interview dozens of
stakeholders from Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) employees to everyday riders,
hear from mobility experts from our sponsors, and finally, develop novel
transportation solutions for the next generation of mobility.
The goal of the IXD class is to get students to think differently about how to solve complex problems. Innovation is not simply waiting for inspiration to strike – it requires completely understanding challenges and identifying opportunities to create a solution. We, along with our partners at City Tech, believe that collaboration across sectors is critical to developing effective, sustainable, and scalable solutions. Design, engineering, and marketing students practice interdisciplinary collaboration within the IXD class by working in groups. Each background brings a unique perspective on how to understand and solve a problem, and this exchange of ideas leads to innovative discoveries.
Despite the
COVID-19 pandemic decreasing ridership on public transit, buses and trains will
continue to be essential to our urban mobility systems. As urban populations
grow, public transit can move people in a way that is cost-effective, good for
the environment, and serves everyone. With these needs in mind, it is critical
we make public transit accessible, appealing, and effective.
Using
Chicago as a testbed, students focused their work on how to increase public
transit access so that residents utilize public transit for at least one leg of
their journey. Forty students dedicated 32 weeks to exploring solutions to
address the following problem statements:
The
student team looking at ways to increase adoption of CTA modes of transportation refocused their research on
improving access. They created EyeTravel,
an app that helps both fully
and partially visually impaired users navigate seamlessly throughout the city
of Chicago as well as into the CTA stations via audio input that takes the user
on a step-by-step journey from point A to B.
The
team looking at reducing friction of transferring modes created ChicaGO!
,
a trip planning mobile application that encourages multimodal transportation
and rewards riders. This app would provide routes that effectively prioritizes
the travel factors that matter most to each user (preferred modes of transit,
travel time, and desirable destinations) and redirects congestion during peak
travel hours, benefitting both individual riders and the CTA ridership as a
whole.
The
bus experience team created EZGo,
a novel,
contactless fare payment and boarding system utilizing a mobile app and a
Bluetooth-enabled receiver to maximize efficiency in the onboarding process. As
passengers board the bus, either from the front or back doors, the fare is
automatically charged to their payment account and a light flashes either green
or red for each rider, indicating payment or nonpayment.
The train
experience team developed the GoFAR
a mobile
app to bridge the gap between language barriers and navigation in Chicago.
GoFAR is used for language-assistance that provides real-time Augmented
Reality (AR) digital visual directions, signage
translation, and audio translations to guide users in navigating from point A
to B, and specifically while navigating the CTA. This application will allow
users to navigate confidently through the city using only one app specifically
focused on Chicago tourists and the underserved Limited English Proficiency
(LEP) individuals & non-native English speakers.
The next
generation transportation team created Launch by
CTA
, an on-demand shuttle service that picks up passengers checked in at
designated Launch Padspots found outside partnered businesses. Passengers will
be driven to the nearest train or bus stop, providing an affordable, multimodal
option, making transportation to the final destination that much easier.
Taken
together, these solutions act at an ecosystem level. Instead of focusing on the
design of a single product, they involve a service idea based on a combination
of hardware (i.e., beacons to be installed in stations, wearables to identify
riders, etc.) and software (i.e., AI algorithms to optimize multimodal
mobility, or automatic translation systems, etc.). They build a future vision
of Mobility as a Service (MAAS) where cloud-based technologies enable increased
efficiency, ‘one-click’ ease-of-use, personalization, and on-demand
services. This vision focuses on
providing a better transportation experience, bridging the physical in-person
experience (supporting a ‘frictionless’ trip) with the digital experience
(planning a trip, managing payments, and building a personal profile).
While they
are based on innovative technologies, all these solutions are applied with a
user-first, human-centered design approach that prioritizes specific social
policies of the City of Chicago and its metro area: public transportation
priorities such as design-for-all, reduction of congestion, elimination of
transit deserts, and economic/environmental sustainability.
The
user-centered IXD process focused initially on understanding the “pains” and
“gains” of riding the CTA. Through their primary and secondary research in
these areas, our students discovered opportunities for innovation in existing
inequities for various demographics and marginalized customer segments. For example, some teams targeted regularly
overlooked groups such as the visually impaired, Limited English Proficiency
(LEP) riders and consumers living in transit deserts. Each of the proposed
solutions provide a clear value proposition that enhance the overall rider
experience across multiple transportation touchpoints.
Student
teams also sought to make public transportation more accessible through
technological advancements and proposed new and exciting lifestyle sub-brands
for the CTA. For example, one of the
groups sought to gamify the rider experience by adding a rewards program while
another group leveraged a new AR mobile platform. In this process, all students
took advantage of the potential to leverage existing City Tech partnerships and
cutting-edge technologies from Bosch, HERE Technologies, and Microsoft.
By
including design, electrical engineering, and marketing students, all teams
were able to simultaneously understand user needs, emerging technology, and the
business landscape. Weaving these perspectives brought about unique solutions
that no single discipline could have created on its own.
Over the
course of the IXD class this past year, we believe that all of us involved
benefited in different ways. Our students got experience doing hands-on,
real-world projects comparable to developing research and innovation in a
cutting-edge tech company. Our technology partners, Bosch, HERE Technologies,
and Microsoft, gained insights into the next generation of Chicagoans’
attitudes and beliefs are toward transportation with a user-first, design
thinking innovation methods. In addition, the learnings will be taken into
consideration for City Tech’s Advanced Mobility
Initiative.
One student
said of their experience, “I really enjoyed this class and had a great
experience overall. I loved the concept of this course where we got the
opportunity to work with students from different majors because it provided
useful experience in collaboration across multiple functions. Our team was very
passionate about our project because City Tech presented us with a business
problem that we were very interested in providing a solution for. Overall, this
was one of my favorite classes I took at UIC. The IXD course added a lot of
value to my degree by offering the chance to work with a real client and having
companies such as Microsoft, Bosch, and HERE as wonderful resources. I learned
so much from this class and I got to walk away with great friends that I met
along the way!"
This collaboration would not have been possible without all partners’
commitment of time and resources. To create true innovations that serve users
across many traditional dividing lines, it takes a collection of varied
perspectives that all have an equal voice. We would like to thank City Tech,
Bosch, HERE, Microsoft, and our amazing undergraduate students at UIC for
providing those voices.
About the Authors:
Lo’Ay
Abu Salah (Electrical Engineering), Kim Moon (Marketing), and Marco Susani (Design) are professors at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
About City Tech Collaborative (City Tech):
City Tech is an
urban solutions accelerator that tackles problems too big for any single sector
or organization to solve alone. City Tech’s work uses IoT sensing networks,
advanced analytics, and urban design to create scalable, market ready
solutions. Current initiatives address advanced mobility, healthy cities,
connected construction, and emerging growth opportunities. City Tech was born
and raised in Chicago, and every city is a potential partner. Visit www.CityTech.org
and
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and LinkedIn.