Service Innovation as Empowerment: Co-Design Mobility for Transport Services with ‘Hard to Reach’ Communities

Public transport systems are among the most ubiquitous and complex large-scale systems. For those unable to drive they form an essential gateway for participation in social, civic, education and employment opportunities. In order to have the freedom to live independently, socialize, or hold a job, one must be able to understand and navigate cognitively complex systems. The Americans with Disabilities 1990 Act (ADA) was passed to encourage integration and eliminate discrimination against individuals with disabilities in critical areas including employment, housing, transportation, recreation, health services, and access to public services. Mobility is an essential need for health, well-being, quality of life, and the ability to engage in equal opportunities (e.g. education, employment and entertainment). Research suggests that the mobility needs of certain groups are not being discovered or fed into the design of new transport services. Co-design represents an opportunity to effectively engage with vulnerable road users, and as a by product empower individuals and community groups. The lack of consultation with service users and the reliance on more traditional methods of requirements capture and user surveys is not limited to the transport domain but has been shown in consultation about the public realm, the design of assistive technology; and for users with specific critical and additional needs. Co-Designing with communities for the design of complex systems, such as transport is challenging. Bradwell and Marr (2008) compared codesign across health, transport, social welfare and educational sectors in UK, EU (excluding UK), USA, Asia Pacific and Latin America, finding fewer examples of this approach in the transport sector. This is of significance considering the acknowledged effects of improved accessibility on quality of life. The reasons for the lack of appetite for co-design projects in the transport sectors need to be examined. In working with transport stakeholders, the METPEX project found the fragmentation of service delivery (plurality of competing operators, privatisation etc.), lack of joined up services and lines of authority and business cases problematic in effecting change. Operators and authorities found it difficult to engage with hard to reach users, or those who were not using their services. This means that research, unless it receives high levels of investment and sign off may not lead to significant change. We propose a paper in reporting a co-design research for service innovation project collaborated between the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh and Coventry University’s Centre for Mobility and Transport in understanding the concept of service innovation as a way to foster user engagement when co- designing ‘mobility’ with the ‘hard to reach’ communities such as the elderlies and children. We outline a collective imagery approach to be used as part of Coventry’s adoption of the World Health Organization framework for age friendly cities. Two types of systematic thinking are relevant in this project: transport design and co-design for service innovation. Both requires a visualization system that is useful for communities to engage with, and therefore to hopefully be able to innovate for their needs. The research will not only works at the clinical level of research, but also potentially explores the ontological aspect of these two systems. It is envisaged that the project will bring a core understanding of co-design and its application to engage communities to participate in the service design of transport system.