Sustainable Public Transportation Service System
CHALLENGE
As a tourist town, the public transportation service system plays a big role in the Savannah community. In recent years, the sharply declining transit ridership and low performance show that the current public transportation does not play well for the Savannah community. The big systematic problem that needs to be solved is how can we help the current public transit system improve and design a sustainable public transportation service for the local community.
DURATION
Sep - Nov, 2022
MY ROLE
Prototype Testing
System Mapping
Workshop Facilitation
Stakeholder Management
DELIVERABLES
Systems improvement, analyze, observe, interact, and provide innovative insights and service system solution based on current public transportation system.
Develop internal and external process and system enhancements with stakeholders.
TEAM
Liuyun Hu
Siyun Lu
Chongyuan Yin
Imani Morgan
BACKGROUND
CAT, as the mainstream public transit in the Savannah community, it’s ridership was relatively consistent leading up to 2019 across all modes. In FY 2019, CAT carried 3,168,774 passengers on the fixed-route network, 112,915 on CAT Mobility, and 787,468 on the Savannah Belles Ferry. The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on transit ridership, with all modes showing a sharp decline in ridership in Spring 2020 (see Figure 5). Ridership decreased by 21% in March 2020, and then again by 71% in April 2020. Ridership increased over the summer of 2020 and has remained mostly stable since. Overall, however, annual ridership for FY 2022 was only 42% of FY 2019. Not only CAT, but the current public transit system is quite concerning and not accessible enough for the Savannah community.
From a systematic innovation perspective, how can we develop a sustainable public transportation system that better serves the Savannah community?
1
What are the challenges people in the savannah community are facing in micro-level customer experiences?
2
How can we improve the current public transportation experiences?
3
How can we envision the futuristic and sustainable public transportation service system?
4
From the macro level, how can we improve the ecosystem and infrastructure?
Design & Research Deliverable
Current Service Ecosystem Map
From the systematic perspective, there are three levels micro, meso to macro level, how the institution and policy impact the customers.
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Future Service Opportunities
What we can implement in the future based on current service system.
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User Experience Design Concept
BEFORE SERVICE
01
Check the schedule and research the bus route, schedule, fares, and other important information online or by phone.
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BEFORE SERVICE
02
Connect smartphone or contactless card with payment.
03
Find the location of bus stop through clear and obvious bus stop signage.
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DURING SERVICE
04
Arrives at the accessible bus stop and waits for the bus.
05
See exactly where their bus is and when it will arrive at their stop, reducing wait times and increasing the accuracy of schedules.
06
The bus arrives, and the customer boards the bus through the front door or rear door if applicable. The customer buys the ticket or scan the pass.
07
Real-time remind and get off the bus, arrived the destination.
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AFTER SERVICE
08
Evaluates their overall experience with the public bus transportation system. The customer may provide feedback to the transit agency or share their experience with friends and family.
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Main Public Transportation Customer Experiences
Chatham Area Transit Bus Services (CAT)
CAT focus on
• Residential density
• Job density
• Activity density
• Density of low-income residents
The fare-free downtown transportation system (DOT)
The DOT routes are designed for trips only within the historic district They are designed to be useful to tourists, travelers, people who work downtown, and people who live downtown They are not expected to be useful for longer trips, into and out of downtown or across the city or county The City’s DOT routes are an example of a more special- ized service In their case, they are specialized for short trips within downtown
CAT Public Transit Customer Journey Map
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DOT Public Transit Customer Journey Map
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Customer Experience Story
From the customer experience level, after we conducted primary research and secondary research around what's our customers current ridership journey, this is a story we depicted from our customers' perspective.
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Research Process
From Customer Experience to System Level
From customer experience to system level, the service design methods and value exchanged have been analyzed and shown.
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Customer Experience Survey