CYRCLE IS A DATA PLATFORM CONCEPT DEVELOPED FOR TRANSPORT FOR LONDON.
IT UNDERSTANDS REAL-TIME TRAFFIC FOR ALL ROAD USERS AND PROVIDE INTELLIGENT & MUTUALLY SAFER ROUTING.
Real-time alert feature of Cyrcle
In 2015 alone, 13 cyclists were killed in a collision with HGV(Heavy Goods Vehicle)s. This has been a terrible blow to the Transport for London, who had been working hard to encourage Londoners to cycle more and drive less.
TfL commissioned Royal College of Art to develop new service design concepts that would make all road users safer on the road in London, with an emphasis on HGVs and cyclists .
With my project team at RCA, I’ve run an in-depth research on the cyclists, HGV drivers, and industry stakeholders and developed Cyrcle, a real-time analytics and alert system based on traffic data gathered by IoT sensors.
UX SCENARIOS
Meet Teri and Stu
Teri is a university student who started cycling to the college. She is not yet a very confident cycle user, and would like a bit more support how to cycle better or with route info.
Stuart is an HGV driver who drives into London every day. He takes every attention he can, to avoid colliding with cyclists or vulnerable pedestrians, but London is so busy and he can never be more cautious.
How does Cyrcle make their journeys safer?
Feature 1. Plan Ahead
7.05 in the morning, Teri checks her usual cycle route via Cyrcle. Cycle gives delay info or better route, based on the prediction with the pattern data collected before.
Stu was informed by his office manager that his route will be busy with cyclists today & gets an alternative route.
2. On-The-Go
Teri gets a silent notification via her smartwatch, that an HGV is approaching from the back. The HGV passes her beside at the junction and stops at the traffic lights. With Cyrcle's warning, Teri stays behind the HGV.
Stu knows Teri is approaching from the back via Cyrcle notification on his navigation device. He starts signalling left, to make sure Teri knows he will turn left.
3. Trends
Being still a novice cyclist, getting a review on how she did today at each junctions help her to have confidence in her cycling & continue to pay attention.
Stu's office manager James can also have an overview that how Stu did with safe driving, which improves the fleet operator's safety record. The company's safety record can be shared back to the insurance provider, for the company to save cost & communicate their commitment to safety back to their customers.
LEARN MORE
Why cycling?
The number of cyclists in London are growing. It is expected there will be r 1M+ daily cyclists by the year 2025. *
But cycling in London is not safe enough. Per hour spent in cycling, cyclists in England are 4 times more likely to be killed than in the Netherlands.
At the same time, London is an important hub for transport of goods for businesses around the UK. Transport for London wants to make London safer for cyclists, while keeping the flow of goods go.
*National Statistics Bureau, Transport commissioner report 2013,
"How can we prepare London for 1M+ cyclists a day while making cycling in London safer?"
Why HGVs?
Heavy Goods Vehicles(HGVs) as main culprits for fatal collisions.
By looking at the reports from Transport Research Lab, we were confirmed that 40% of fatal cyclist collisions are collisions with HGVs, 65% of them were turning left, and 40% of them were at T junctions.* HGVs also play a big part in fatal accidents with vulnerable pedestrians, such as children or elderly, as they are quite often likely to be overlooked around the huge vehicles.
*National Statistics Bureau,
Transport Commissioner Report 2013
"There is a clear pattern in the interaction between HGV vs cyclist or pedestrian collisions.
So why can't we do something about it?"
Who can make a difference?
While the primary interaction takes place between HGV drivers & cyclists, & vulnerable road users.
Fleet Operators, HGV OEMs, London Met Police, Transport for London can all provide infrastructure or a system that would support them. This enables to think about a bigger system that involves every stakeholder, not just vulnerable road users & HGV drivers.
So here we redefined our challenge.
"How might we connect vulnerable road users (VLUs) & Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs)
to communicate better in order to anticipate & avoid danger?
MVP research approach
With the limitation in budget and time, we've stretched the sample to represent the market as diverse as possible.
We've distributed the age/experiences of cyclists & drivers, looked at fleet operators from different sectors, different sizes & levels of safety accreditation.
Meeting key industrial bodies
We’ve met with Ian Vincent from the Fleet Operator Recognition Scheme(FORS). Ian provided a great overview of how HGV drivers are trained and regulated.
Understanding cyclists
With a form of a connected service in mind, we primarily looked at the cyclist & truck drivers.
1. Novice users
"I started cycling because it saves money & it's much quicker to get from A to B here in London.
I used to cycle in my country so I should be able to manage it. But there are moments I'm not totally sure what action I should take."- Teri, 28 yrs, student
Novice users need most help. While they feel confident enough to bring their cycle to London roads, they still have a lot more to learn how to be vigilant, and also, they are not yet fully familiar with the roads yet so need help with routing. With our interviews, we observed that, quite often their confidence is more than their knowledge is their vigilant ability, which could put them at risk at certain moments. One mistake is one mistake too many!
Often someone like Teri is still in early stage of trying cycles as a mode of transport & has not invested in time & safety gear yet, thus making them further vulnerable.
Teri would benefit particularly from : Plan Ahead, On The Go, Trends
2. Cautious Power Users
"It was a very dark day, and I thought,
they will never see me. I am dying today.
I chose the most powerful light, because the driver could underestimate my space if my light is small."- Kevin , 32 yrs, technician
Cautious power users are very good learners, open minded enough to learn new skills in cycling, happy to use technologies to look for new routes or updates, and also vigilant enough on the road, which make them in turn good cyclists on the road.
Being cautious, they are probably not as confident as they deserve, but that's probably a good thing for cycling as one accident is one accident too many.
Kevin would benefit particularly from : Plan Ahead, Trends
3.Stimulus Seekers
"No point stopping at the traffic lights when nothing is moving.
I've spotted so many celebrities while cycling, it's really fun. I do cycle on weekends indeed, when I meet my friends."- Alex,fitness trainer
Stimulus seekers are usually very skilled riders. However, it doesn't make them less vulnerable. I've read quite a few articles on cyclists who've been riding 10, 20 years who still become victims of collisions. Why does it happen? Sometimes the most skilled ones are the most complacent.
For example, Alex doesn't wear helmets nor hi-vis jackets anymore, having been once involved in a light collision, which made him think it doesn't help actually. He is too bothered with stopping at junctions when no one else is moving. He loves the stimulus of speed cycling gives, which is totally understandable, would be great if a service could support his enjoyment in cycling while still keeping him safe.
Kevin would benefit particularly from : On-The-Go, Trends (if with gamification)
Implementation strategy
The real-time & historical data can be collected via multiple parties to the cloud platform, which, in turn, could push out the relevant information back to each road user.
Transport for London can release a Cyrcle API for app developers, connected product manufacturers, vehicle OEMs & fleet operators so that Cyrcle can be serviced fully cross-platform & cross-device, not only smartphone & wearables but integrated into the dashboard of connected vehicles, and any connected gears for cyclists & pedestrians.
Discussion with Transport for London
We've delivered our proposal to Transport for London in December 2015. Transport for London has received with interests. We were told however they see massive uptake of the users as a big barrier, as well as the potential controversy over sharing citizen's real-time data. They are legitimate real-life concerns. I did think our proposal would be a little ahead of time, but not too much ahead. I do believe the world is moving into this direction if we like it or not, & figuring out the right experience & system for all stakeholders early-on would be the key.
Technology platform owners such as Google would definitely be looking into offering more traffic--related services. If public bodies such as TfL wouldn't make a move in time, such data would be accumulated & owned by big technology platform owners & that there is a likelihood that public sector would have to resort to them to be able to learn from the data, thus dependent on technology corporates from private sector for provision & improvement of public services.
Reflections
This is a classic example of what interaction design & service design can do to tackle messy social problems with the inspirations from emerging technologies. It was an opportunity for me to first question on what public sector can do to embrace emerging technologies early-on and future out the right systems & experiences.