Encouraging Sustainable Urban Access: An Exploratory Student Approach to Design of Product Service Systems
Paper in proceeding, 2013

Urban access is a key trans-disciplinary design axiom looking to ensure that every member of the society can reach those locations and resources one needs for a sustainable standard of living and productivity. This should be achieved in a way that does not deprive others from their right to access the same urban environment. Crafting the future of urban transportation design is a dynamic process that depends on developing a thorough understanding of the complexity of the human needs that associate with delivering ways to support urban access and, in particular, more sustainable and socially inclusive mobility patterns. New market demands and customer expectations force public and private organisations to expand their commitment to cross-border collaborations to provide attractive alternative transport modes. This paper discusses the challenge of utilizing design innovation as a tool for eco-branding and how an exploratory approach to this has been used in a post-graduate course in Visual Brand Identity and Product Design. Seven research teams, closely guided by the authors, were affiliated with designing an innovative hypothetical bike-sharing scheme for the city of Gothenburg, Sweden, with the potential to captivate road users’ acceptability. An overall description of the project concept and a brief summary of the results produced are presented herein. More specifically, this paper concentrates solely on one of the most innovative projects delivered within the course and discusses how the students adopted the challenge, as well as the actual project outcome and its contribution to the overall learning experience.

Branding

Sustainability

Urban Access

Bike-Sharing Schemes

Product Service Systems

Author

Alexandros Nikitas

University of Gothenburg

Chalmers, Product and Production Development, Design and Human Factors

Mistra Urban Futures

Ulrike Rahe

Mistra Urban Futures

Chalmers, Product and Production Development, Design and Human Factors

University of Gothenburg

Toni-Matti Karjalainen

15th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education Conference "Growing our Future", September 2013, Dublin, Ireland

786-791
978-1-904-67042-1 (ISBN)

Subject Categories

Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics

Other Engineering and Technologies

Transport Systems and Logistics

Areas of Advance

Transport

Building Futures (2010-2018)

Production

Learning and teaching

Pedagogical work

ISBN

978-1-904-67042-1

More information

Created

10/7/2017