Kiel 2022: an era of public transport transformation

The city of Kiel is living a public transportation transformation era, in which a reliable water taxi system would cover a lot of the mobility needs required nowadays and in the future, particularly if the aim is to respect the city’s sustainable vision, as well as its interest in improving its citizens’ life quality.

Mobility is a crucial topic when we talk about improving life quality, and one of the aspects that will change massively due to technological innovation and behavioural changes. The ownership of private vehicles will decrease; thusly, the combination of multiple modes of transportation will become more prominent in cities.

Background

Why to develop a Water Taxi?

This project is based on the CAPTN project that has been running for the last 2 years in the city of Kiel. The CAPTN project aims to improve conectivity and transportation in Kiel, which due to its geography, has been one of the leading German naval bases since the 1860s. It is the capital of the federal state Schleswig-Holstein, hence the importance of modernizing and improving trafficn in the city.

The previous CAPTN Projects (Vaiaro and Wavelab) already aimed at solving urban mobility problems in Kiel, but only considered massive transportation vehicle, ignoring completely the need of having a more private vehicle in case the user had an urgency or needed to travel fast and directly from one port to another.

At the beginning a group brainstorming was made. Through its development, I understood how complex it is to design a transportation system, especially one that will not be controlled by a human and has to be innovative enough to drastically improve its user’s life quality.

For it to be developed, the system would need a new infrastructure, vehicle, app and maybe even an extra automat or interface where the user could be able to buy tickets.

Fast

Kiel identity

24/7 available affordable flexible

Clean Autonomous Water Taxi System In Kiel

In this phase of the project, I defined the objective of the project: “Develop a transportation system that complements the current CAPTN System in Kiel.” secure inclusive intuitiv

The characteristics of the system were also set to achieve the previously mentioned objective. These can be seen in the present mental map.

Age: 34 years old

Marital Status: single

Master International Business

Professional Years: 7 years Net Income: 3800€

Needs Goals

+ aboutHappy Personality

Favorite Brands

Daniel just realized he has a train to catch and has only 20 minutes to arrive to the Main Station. The only public transport that can bring him on time is the W.Taxi, so he searches for the nearest port.

Daniel can see in the W.Taxi App how long will the trip last and how much will it cost.

The App shows where is the next W.Taxi Port and how many W.Taxis are available.

Daniel arrives to the port. There he can see the number of available taxis and also the connection to the CAPTN Vaiaro Ferry.

Daniel

He aboards the vehicle. The W.Taxi will welcome him with the proper atmosphere and signage.

Daniel arrives succesfully and punctually to his destiny.

Insight: The need of the design of the interface of the head-up display.

Phase 1

In the first phase, the elements such as time, date and weather were still to predominant for the head-up display’s dimensions. The idea of a path showing the direction of the vehicle was constant since the beginning.

Phase 2

In the second phase, the most important part was the development of a vectorial map, which could be easily understood.

Color Experimentation was also crucial.

Design Process

Phase 3

In the third phase, the elements of the second phase are simplified and positioned in the center of the screen, so that they can be better seen.

Elements: Direction Velocity Remaining Time Map

The arrow indicates the direction and the 4 parts of the circle the cardinal points.

x -x

The velocity is showed in km/h inside of a vectographic that resembles a speedometer.

Inspired by the representation of time passing by in any conventional round analog clock.

In the interactive map, the user can see his real-time location on the representation of the travel route.

Yellow: Red:

Thanks to the vectographical precision of the interface, the intersection of the W.Taxi path with the other ships path can be showed in yellow color and remarked with a symbol of “crossing”.

This function allows the user to know exactly where the other ship will cross with the path of the W.Taxi, giving this way an extra sense of security that the ship will not crash with the W.Taxi.

The moment the other ships crosses over the path of the W.Taxi, the yellow projection of both paths turn into a red area. This, beside its warning function that indicates there’s a ship near the W.Taxi, also makes the trip more interesting, because of the gamification of the situation. The whole situation gives the user a sense that every detail of the trip is controlled and measured.

User Journey. How would be a trip inside W.Taxi with different weather conditions?