Modeling traveler experience for designing urban mobility systems

Abstract

Travelers interact with a large number and variety of products and services during their journeys. The quality of a travel experience depends on a whole urban mobility system considered in space and time. This paper outlines the relevant concepts to be considered in designing urban mobility. The goal is to provide a language and insights for the early stages of a design process. A literature review sheds light on the complexity of urban mobility from technical, sociotechnical, and user experience perspectives. Observations of experiences in urban areas provide data for describing and understanding travel experience patterns and issues. The paper proposes a conceptual model to describe and analyze different facets of traveler experience and categorizes problems that travelers face when they interact with an urban mobility system. A case study is reported illustrating the use of the conceptual model in identifying travel problems for a demand-responsive transport service.

Keywords

• system design
• traveler experience
• travel problems
• service