Design for San Diego
Design for San Diego is an annual exhibit which uses design and design thinking to showcase innovative solutions to human-centered issues surrounding San Diego, such as problems surrounding housing, health, environment and mobility. I had the opportunity to engage with this challenge which helped me think critically for my user group as well as design products, services and policies for these complex socio-technical systems.
After interviews, surveys and research, my team and I found that the current trolley system set in place shies away many commuters due to inconveniences involving amenities, personal comfort and class differences. We aimed to reimagine the current trolley experience into one that met these needs while also keeping in mind the needs of the current trolley-goers. We chalked up our purpose in one inquiry- how might we improve overall desirability of the transit system to encourage commuters to participate and strengthen the culture of the San Diego public transport system?
Finding the Central Paradox
This year, D4SD strived for an emphasis on mobility. Our team decided to focus on pinpointing San Diego commuter’s relationship with public transportation. During my commutes as a student around the city, I observed many bus stops in San Diego seem to be ubiquitous along the coast and metropolitan parts of the city such as La Jolla, North Park, Hillcrest. Many of these neighborhoods are bustling with younger people attending school, going to their jobs and traveling for extracurricular activities. Many commuters tend to rely on cars to get to work above anything else, yet it causes traffic to pile up immensely among peak hours which make it difficult to get around in cars. However, areas outside of these neighborhoods near Old Town or Mission Hills has less accessibility to these stops, which are where lower middle class communities reside- they tend to rely on trolley stops most for transportation and travel to take it. Since these are the communities that rely the most on public transportation, it was confusing on why the accessibility in these neighborhoods weren’t as much, if not more, to these resources as other surrounding urban cities. And if traffic makes it difficult for commuters to easily get home faster after work, why won’t commuters consider other public transportation such as the trolley? We wanted to understand where and why these discrepancies lay. This has caused us to pursue our Central Paradox- How might we encourage commuters to consider public transport as a viable option for their daily commute without displacing other communities that rely on it?
Stakeholder Diagram
With the problem statement said above, I identified the main stakeholders being: the unsheltered, public transportation centers, San Diegans, police and the city of San Diego. The homeless use transport for shelter and transportation as well as San Diegans themselves. The City helps fund public transportation and other resources that can in return help the homeless. They also fund the police, who displace/fine/jail many homeless to try to protect property and also the citizens of San Diego themselves. Creating these visual representations made me understand and communicate assumptions and hypothesis about how key stakeholders interact. This helps me navigate designs around these boundaries intact.
Affinity Diagram
Those who were also interested in equitable access with me brainstormed a more broad problem statement in which we all stem from in our more personal statements. We honed in on topics relating to transit such as who is public transit for? How do we prioritize PT above taking cars? Desire involving public transportation- why does public transport seem like the last option for working citizens? The statement we generated is how might we improve the experience and accessibility of public transport for low income groups?
Storyboard
This is one of my first storyboards drawn outlining the idea of a public transport hub. I created multiple stakeholder charts, conducted interviews with local bus travelers, and participated during in-class brainstorming. Taking inspiration from places such as the Anaheim Regional Transit Center and Penn Station over in the East Coast, I developed a storyboard which would include a ‘hub-like’ structure around trolley stations around San Diego, which would provide food/drink, places to sit and socialize and a center to provide resources for those who are homeless along with local art/sculptures/architecture in order to showcase the culture of San Diego. I included the design of a transit hub as an effort to:
increase ridership
offer resources to the unsheltered already taking refuge in these centers
foster a sense of community.
After brainstorming our problem statement, my team and I wanted to also focus on lower income accessibility. From our storyboards, we proposed three solutions which would cover an end-to-end solution for improving the entire transit experience from:
a) Getting from one’s home to the transit center via a neighborhood shuttle, to
b) Reconceptualizing transit centers to be neighborhood landmarks that facilitate a more comfortable place to be in, to
c) Having designated trolley cars for different groups of people or different types of activities
In this way, we envisioned the three ideas for different stages of the whole transit.
Surveys and Speed Dating
Surveys were then conducted to members of SanDag and MTS Transportation regarding our three ideas. Given our feedback of our ideas, the conversation shifted the potency of the different ideas listed above. After following up with MTS Manager of Service Quality for the Rail Division, Brent Boyd, and getting feedback on our surveys, we realized:
The idea of creating a neighborhood shuttle that would service low income communities gained a lot of traction, however the logistics and cost behind the idea made it seem less and less feasible. MTS currently provides rapid buses and community circulators which essentially work as neighborhood shuttles for high-density areas.
People primarily use public transportation as it is the cheapest and quickest way for people to get to and from their places of work.
People are more interested in having a comfortable and welcoming space during their daily commutes.
Therefore, it was decided to redesign the trolley carts to designate trolley carts to different populations of riders (ex. Women, workers, families). We did this because:
With research, we found different countries have implemented train carts catering to various groups of people. For example, in Japan, a female-only cart available during night for safety measures, which have proved to be very successful.
Our surveys indicate that commuters would like a quiet place to work if they were to take the option of transit.
Having the opportunity to give people a safe space on transit can increase its desirability.
However, we shared our ideas in a ‘speed dating’ sessions with other designers with the guidance of MTS managers. From our first speed dating session, we received good feedback from Don Murphy in regards to feasibility and scalability of our proposed ideas.
By making public transportation more desirable, ridership would increase. Reconceptualizing taking the transit as an ‘experience’ more than just a stop-by would increase desirability in general.
Adding extra conveniences at transit stops such as coffee, food delivery services and proper seating, people will be more inclined to use it. It was also brought up that a huge part of increasing ridership is promoting and marketing the convenience of public transportation.
From our feedback survey, it stood out clearly that people prioritize feeling safe, clean and having valuable amenities available to them as they ride the trolley.
This helped us rethink how we plan to improve the attractiveness of public transit by narrowing down our focus and realizing priorities of riders.
Final Stakeholder Diagram
After finalizing our storyboards, we redefined our stakeholder value exchange diagram. There were a few key stakeholders our team had decided on. This includes trolley riders (which can then be sectioned off into students, job-holding people, homeless and others), MTS, MTS security, buses and businesses. Transportation companies like MTS provide buses and trolleys for riders in exchange for funds in order to maintain upkeep and pay employees such as MTS security. Businesses help MTS by funding them in order to advertise themselves. Businesses that are employers of commuters also provide value to trolley riders in terms of subsidizing transport for commuting employees. Businesses who provide amenities such as food carts and newsstands or even tourism companies will receive revenue from riders who are customers.
Proposed Solution
Our final proposed solution is a combination of the initially proposed b) and c) ideas mentioned above. However, with practical implementation challenges and considerations for the true needs of a typical trolley rider, we scaled down the ideas slightly to match our new problem frame, which now focuses on providing a safe, clean transit environment with amenities to serve commuters. Our final proposed solution involves:
Adding a convenience store to transit stations and other businesses in order to provide various amenities to riders. The convenience store would sell food, drinks and newspapers, feature local art and attractions around the area. It targets a basic need that still goes unfulfilled in some transit stations. For example, the 2015 Sandag On-Board Transit Passenger Survey showed that besides going to work between taking the trolley from/to home, buying a meal/beverage was the second most-conducted activity by riders. Thus, if we are able to serve this need right at the transit center itself, it will be an added convenience and incentive to take transit, and increase the pleasantness of the experience overall.
Assigning one trolley cart as a Quiet Cart, which requires riders to have reduced noise levels in order to promote workspaces designated for productivity. Assigning a ‘quiet’ trolley car designated for commuters would help them rely on silence to work on tasks pertaining to their schools, jobs, etc. Quiet cars would have stickers or posters that enforce silent cell phones, conversations kept to whispering and no loud music. Instead of remodeling the entire trolley exterior to signify these distinctions, we are proposing magnetic sticker labels that can be stuck on the outside of the trolley car in order to signify to riders of the quiet cart.
Adding services such as WiFi and charging ports in the trolley, which have become highly desirable amenities in today’s online world. This also adds an aspect of safety and security to riders who may need their phones to be charged for bus passes, ride-hailing, or simply to contact their friends and family during their journey. On top of this, we can also provide brochures, either in the form of paper leaflets or QR codes to digital forms of media promoting activities to do around the area and form an impression of the sense of community that’s unique to said neighborhood. Featuring local art at this convenience store/food stand would also be a good community effort to make the place more vibrant and welcoming.
Redesigned the trolley seat itself in order to promote a feeling of individuality and comfort amongst all riders in the train. After conducting visits and observing the current trolley stations, we redesigned the seats of the trolley cart in order to promote a feeling of individuality and comfort amongst all riders in the train. This includes a hearty headrest along with back supporting chairs along with the comfort of having the charging ports and WiFi. This is in response to the feedback we got on the survey in which commuters want to have a comfortable, safe ride with valuable amenities. The addition of comfortable chairs and new amenities can hopefully increase the attractiveness of public transport to these valuable commuters.
Triton Trolley Deliverables
Funding
For the trolley cars themselves, MTS would be funding the majority of the changes (i.e. adding wifi and charging ports) involving each of the individual cars since they own the cars themselves. As for remodeling the station overall and employing/stocking the convenience store(s), a potential avenue would be having a local business run the store and use a mix of their existing inventory as well as local fundraising groups in order to keep the store stocked with food and brochures. This would bring in a more community-based approach which can garner empathy and jobs. Fundraising would be important to add to some of the aesthetic of the trolley stops themselves, such as local artists painting murals to make the stops feel more like the local culture. To save some money, in addition to the brochures, we would add QR codes for online brochures so we don’t need to constantly restock them as they will be online for the majority of people, while still accommodating those that may not have access to a smartphone.
Potential Downfalls and Risks
Some potential hurdles needed to cross for these changes would be the legal issues of designating certain cars for different populations of riders (i.e. quieter cars for focusing on work/relaxing, louder cars for talking/socializing). Originally, we want to model these cars after other countries such as Japan that have dedicated cars for certain populations of riders, such as women and children or noise control cars. However, the issues we may have in America for ideas such as that would be issues over discrimination that may prevent us from being able to designate certain cars over fears of them potentially being used to segregate certain populations.
Another issue that might be brought up might be a lack of funding from either MTS to change the existing trolley cars to add features to them or even a lack of outside funds in order to add amenities to the existing trolley stops. Try to prepare for the adjustment period for riders toward the new system of cars for different populations of riders could take time and potentially have backlash is something that we would need to prepare for as well.
Prototype
For prototyping our design, we role-played with a mock-up of the chair design and transit center. We had each of the “passengers” wait at the “trolley stop” and experience the amenities that we have proposed (i.e. artwork, food, brochures) while they wait for the trolley to get there. When the trolley arrives, we would ask them to pick one of the three cars we have (quiet, medium, or loud) and we would lead them to each of the cars and have them experience the one(s) that they choose. We could prototype this using small rooms in Geisal Library to imitate the transit hub and the trolley cars respectively. We used one of the bigger rooms in the row to act as the central transit hub, and then we designated 3 of the smaller rooms to be each of the types of trolley cars. We made the larger rooms look more like the transit center by adding artwork, concessions and making other people wait for the trolleys. People sat in the smaller rooms acting like they would according to which “trolley car” they are in as an example for new riders. After performing the prototype experiment, we interviewed the test subjects about how they felt about the experience as a whole in order to find any improvements we could make on our prototypes in regards to the effectiveness or overall feel of the experience.
Kickstarter
Our kickstarter highlights our story, our proposed designs of the chairs and carts, our poster/video and data on the budget of the new designs implemented on the trolley cart. The link is located down below. I directed the design and the budget of the Triton Trolley.
Overall, based on our user research and collaboration with key stakeholders from MTS and SANDAG, by creating a transit-like hub centered around trolleys, construct noise specific carts and implement rider-specific amenities, we can hope to increase ridership from commuters, establish an environment that is flexible and comfortable, we can foster a sense of community around the culture of San Diego .
Final Storyboard
Our storyboard involves Sally, a commuter, who is getting late for work but decides to take the trolley. She notices she can grab breakfast since she didn’t have time before and board the trolley where she can enjoy her breakfast in the appropriate trolley cart. She decides to take the trolly cart again at night, after a long day at work in the quiet cart and enjoys the silence. The storyboard highlights how the trolley can adequately provide for all of Sally’s potential needs as a commuter.
Triton Trolley Additions
The Triton Trolley would include these chairs that were designed in order to increase comfort in riders with the inclusion of memory foam back cushions, head sets, charging ports on the bottom and a retractable desk to place things comfortably and create a space for productivity.
Triton Trolley Poster
Triton Trolley Video
Overall, based on our user research and collaboration with key stakeholders from MTS and SANDAG, by creating a transit-like hub centered around trolleys, construct noise specific carts and implement rider-specific amenities, we can hope to increase ridership from commuters, establish an environment that is flexible and comfortable, we can foster a sense of community around the culture of San Diego. I worked with a group of peers supervised under Steven P. Dow to work on this project. We were evaluated on our ability to design solutions to civic challenges affecting San Diegans. In my team, I directed the design of the Triton Trolley and Budgeting, while also aiding in affinity diagramming, interview and survey collecting and prototyping. Some skills that were built/strengthened during my time under Dow were:
Conducting multiple methods for user research such as surveys, empathy maps and stakeholder diagramming.
Using sketch as a means of visual exploration and ideation which gives form to design ideas through prototyping
Collaborating with other designers in interdisciplinary teams in order to understand the ‘why’
Giving and receiving feedback in constructive ways during critiques
Learning how to properly communicate design ideas to a variety of stakeholders