Mike Tovey

Andree Woodcock

Jane Osmond

European cities increasingly face problems caused by transport and traffic. For many people transport provision is unsatisfactory and current arrangements are leading to a deteriorating environment. A fundamental problem is that our currently fragmented approach makes it difficult to understand fully the circumstances and needs of transport users. In any overall approach public transport is a crucial component. Designing Mobility and Transport Services shows how these issues can be addressed and resolved. The development of an inclusive, validated passenger experience measurement instrument is the first step in understanding the situation and thus tackling it. It is needed if we are to create high quality, user centred, integrated, accessible public transport services, which are capable of attracting and retaining public transport users whilst meeting sustainability targets. The METPEX research project was devised to tackle these issues. Coordinated by Coventry University, the METPEX consortium brought together 16 European partners from 12 countries. The project’s underlying rationale was the proposition that if transport operators and authorities were provided with a robust, reliable and tailorable means of measuring the whole multimodal passenger journey, they could improve service provision. The book describes how such an improvement can be achieved, to attract travellers out of their private vehicles, thereby reducing congestion and pollution and increasing health and well-being. It provides a template for a creative approach and a meta-design narrative in designing for transport systems to enhance mobility choices by improving the door to door journey and thus underpin sustainable transport initiatives.

Developing traveller experience tools

Designing Mobility and Transport Services

The central premise of Design for Transport is that the designer's role is to approach design for transport from the point of view of the user. People have a collection of wants and needs and a significant proportion of them are to do with their requirements for mobility. The authors show how creative designers can take a user-focused approach for a wide range of types of transport products and systems. In so doing their starting point is one of creative dissatisfaction with what is currently available, and their specialist capability is in imagining and developing new solutions which respond to that opportunity. How this is tackled varies depending on the context, and the variety of solutions produced reflects the different aspirations and needs of the people they are designing for. The chapters cover user needs and transport, design and the transport system, transport design case studies, and the case for the automobile. A conclusion briefly signals what the future for transport design might be. Lavishly illustrated throughout in four-colour, Design for Transport, is an imaginative and rigorous guide to how designers can take a user-centred and socially responsible approach to tackling a range of types of transport, from systems to products and from bicycles to automobiles, demonstrating a rich array of solutions through case studies.

A User-Centred Approach to Vehicle Design and Travel

Design for Transport

Design Pedagogy explains why it is vital for design students that their education helps them construct a ’passport’ to enter the professional sphere. Recent research into design teaching has focused on its signature pedagogies, those elements which are particularly characteristic of the disciplines. Typically based on core design theory, enlivened by approaches imported to the area, such work has utility when it recognizes the visual language of designing, the media of representation used, and the practical realities of tackling design questions. Increasingly the 21st century sees these activities in a global context where the international language of the visual artefact is recognized. This book draws on recent work in these areas. It includes a number of chapters which are developed from work undertaken during the period of special funding for centres of teaching excellence in the UK up until 2010. Two of those in design have provided the basis for research and innovative developments reported on here. They have helped to enliven the environment for design pedagogy research in other establishments which are also included. Design students need support for the agile navigation through the design process. Learning experiences should develop students’ natural motivations and professionalise motivation to create a resilient, informed and sustainable capacity. This is the essence of ’transformative learning’. This collection explores how design education is, in itself, a passport to practice and showcases how some of the key developments in education use techniques related to collaboration, case studies and experience to motivate students, enable them to express their identity, reflect and learn.

Mike Tovey

Books

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