Analysis of a Train-operating Company’s Customer Service System during Disruptions:Conceptual Requirements for Gamifying Frontline Staff Development

This paper provides an account of an action research study into the systemic success factors which help frontline staff react to and recover from a rail service disruption. This study focuses on the effective use of information during a disruption to improve customer service, as this is a priority area for train-operating companies (TOCs) in Great Britain. A novel type of systems thinking, known as Process-Oriented Holonic Modelling (PrOH), has been used to investigate and model the ‘Passenger Information During Disruption’ (PIDD) system. This paper presents conceptual requirements for a gamified learning environment; it describes ‘what’; ‘how’ and ‘when’ these systemic success factors could be gamified using a popular disruption management reference framework known as the Mitigate, Prepare, React and Recover (MPRR) framework. This paper will interest managers of and researchers into customer service system disruptions, as well as those wishing to develop new gamified learning environments to improve customer service systems

Systemische Vernetzung urbaner und ländlicher Räume – Erkennen, Formulieren, Entwerfen

Im Rahmen von Planungsvorhaben beschränken sich Kontextanalysen oftmals nur auf räumliche Veränderungsprozesse von „Land“ oder „Stadt“. Damit hierbei alle gesamtgesellschaftlichen Aspekte zielführend mitgedacht werden können, sollten diese bewusst frühzeitig maßstabsübergreifend erfasst werden. Das Aufbrechen fokussierter Planungssichten stellt hierfür einen notwenigen ersten Schritt dar. Die Systemgrenze der Betrachtungsweise sollte dabei grundlegend erweitert werden. Somit können frühzeitig wichtige Akteursgruppen und sozial-räumliche Wechselwirkungen in das Sichtfeld treten, deren ansonstenvernachlässigte Belange nur schwer bzw. nicht mehr in die laufende Planung zu integrieren sind. Analysen von verschiedenen Personen-, Waren-, Informationsströme etc. dienen als Ansatz einer vernetzten Betrachtung von „Land“ und „Stadt“. Diesem Gedanken folgend wird ein ganzheitlicher analysebasierter Planungsansatz, der zu einem integrierten Lehrkonzept für Architekturstudenten forschungsnah aufbereitet wurde, vorgestellt. Als Basis und Alleinstellungsmerkmal gegenüber der klassischen Entwurfsausbildung wird eine breitgefächerte Potentialanalyse an den Anfang einer planerischen Entwurfsaufgabe gestellt. Praxisnahe Lehrveranstaltungen, basierend auf den frühen Phasen der Projektentwicklung, schulen mit verschiedenen planerischen Instrumentarien die Studierenden, um planerische Problemstellungen zu regionalen und überregionalen Verflechtungen (Stadt-Landbeziehungen) sowie Eingriffe auf verschiedenenMaßstabsebenen wie Nachbarschaft und Quartier zu identifizieren und problemgerecht zu qualifizieren. In der weiteren Bearbeitung entsteht hieraus ein integrales, bauliches und räumliches Entwurfskonzept

All Work and No Play? Facilitating Serious Games and Gamified Applications in Participatory Urban Planning and Governance

As games and gamified applications gain prominence in the academic debate on participatory practices, it is worth examining whether the application of such tools in the daily planning practice could be beneficial. This study identifies a research–practice gap in the current state of participatory urban planning practices in three European cities. Planners and policymakers acknowledge the benefits of employing such tools to illustrate complex urban issues, evoke social learning, and make participation more accessible. However, a series of impediments relating to planners’ inexperience with participatory methods, resource constraints, and sceptical adult audiences, limits the broader application of games and gamified applications within participatory urban planning practices. Games and gamified applications could become more widely employed within participatory planning processes when process facilitators become better educated and better able to judge the situations in which such tools could be implemented as part of the planning process, and if such applications are simple and useful, and if their development process is based on co-creation with the participating publics

Flexible Public Transport - Analysis of User Requirements on Mobility-on-Demand Systems

Contemporary society faces the challenge of mitigating the negative effects of motorized individual transport, which includes greenhouse gas emissions, noise, accidents and traffic congestion. App-based mobility-on-demand systems (MODS) promise a transformation towards a more sustainable mobility by offering a flexible public transport as an alternative to private motorized transport. As new MODS flourish and spread quickly, it is important to understand how they affect individual travel patterns and transportation systems. The service concept of MODS is to a large extent very different from conventional scheduled transport. As an example, the adaptability of routes, times and sudden divergence from planned routes, to pick-up and drop-off passengers, are characteristics inherent of MODS that are in contrast to the service quality aspect of reliability of conventional public transport. Scientific literature gives insufficient information on the issue of how users perceive and assess these new services. From a scientific perspective, the novelty of MODS requires the adaption of established behavioural models and theories to study the flexibility of the system. The aim of this dissertation is to contribute to the understanding of the users’ requirements, as well as drivers and barriers for using MODS. This dissertation aims to fill the research gap that opens up with regard to users’ perception and assessment of MODS, especially their flexible service concept. This dissertation thereby aims to contribute to the development of theories based on empirical studies. This dissertation comprises four empirical studies to investigate the factors that affect the perception and assessment of MODS. In Study 1, a choice modelling approach based on a discrete choice experiment was used to identify which service characteristics affect travellers’ appraisal of MODS. Study 2 builds upon Study 1 by using the results of the preference modelling for imparting the service concept of MODS and the service characteristics to the users. For this purpose, the serious game B.u.S. was developed and used to improve players’ knowledge, attitude and willingness to use MODS. The effectiveness of the serious game to impart knowledge about the service concept of MODS and to raise awareness about the usefulness of the service was assessed in an evaluation study. Study 3 focused on the impact of a specific service characteristic, the ridesharing concept on travellers’ willingness to use MODS. The purpose of Study 3 was to examine the effects of a flexible travel time and a variable detour factor as the specific service characteristics of MODS on the willingness to share rides in autonomous MODS. Study 4 complemented the findings of Study 3 by a sociopsychological perspective on the ridesharing concept in autonomous MODS. In more detail, Study 4 investigated the effects of information provision about fellow travellers’ characteristics, such as name or gender, on individuals’ compensation demands for sharing rides. Altogether, the four independent, yet closely related studies of the dissertation shed light on the user’s perception of MODS by using and developing theories and models of behavioural science based on flexible MODS. The results of each of the four studies will be analysed jointly to understand the potential user requirements on MODS and thereby expand the state of research. Looking at the results of each study separately, Study 1 revealed the importance of the six service attributes of travelling time, walking distance, information provision, time of booking, shift of departure time, and fare on the respondents’ appraisal of the service concept. The calculation of the willingness to pay gave an indication of the respondents’ wish for an improvement in the quality of the service offered, for example a shorter walking distance to the pick-up point. The evaluation study of the serious game in Study 2 found clear indications of beneficial effects of the serious game on individuals’ conceptual comprehension and understanding of MODS. Study 3 verified and expanded the findings of Study 1 by showing that the willingness to share rides in autonomous MODS depends on specific characteristics of each trip (travel time and detour factor) as well as personal characteristics (age, gender and income). Study 4 supplemented the findings of Study 3 by revealing a beneficial effect of detailed information about fellow travellers on traveller’s willingness to share rides in autonomous MODS. Accordingly, full profile information involving a picture, the name and a rating of the fellow traveller was found to reduce the compensation demands for sharing rides. The overall goal of this dissertation is to start filling the gap in the academic literature concerning the perception and appraisal of MODS and users’ willingness to adopt them and thereby to complement behavioural theories. Based on the findings of the four studies, a research model to approach individual’s assessment of the flexibility of public transport systems is derived. This model adds to existing models such as the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) and the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1985) to include understanding of the flexibility dimension of MODS. Based on the findings of the four studies, implications for the user-centred research on flexible mobility are derived in the form of hypotheses that can guide further research

Mobile services for green living

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Information Management, specialization in Geographic Information SystemsUrban cycling is a sustainable transport mode that many cities are promoting. However, few cities are taking advantage of geospatial technologies to represent and analyse behavioural patterns and barriers faced during cycling. This thesis is within the fields of geoinformatics and serious games, and the motivation came from our desire to help both citizens and cities to better understand cyclist behaviour and mobility patterns. We attempted to learn more about the impact of gamified strategies on engagement with cycling, the reasons for choosing between mobile cycling applications and the way such applications would provide commuting information. Furthermore, we explored the potential benefits of offering tools to build decision-making for mobility more transparent, to increase cycling data availability, and to analyse commuting patterns. In general, we found our research useful to enhance green living actions by increasing citizens’ willingness to commute by bicycle or communicating cycling conditions in cities. For urban cycling, data coming from mobile phones can provide a better assessment and enrich the analysis presented in traditional mobility plans. However, the diversity of current mobile applications targeting cyclists does not provide useful data for analysing commuter (inner-city, non-sporting) cycling. Just a few cyclists are adopting these applications as part of their commuting routine, while on the other hand cities are lacking a valuable source of constantly updated cycling information helpful to understand cycling patterns and the role of bicycles in urban transport. This thesis analyses how the incentives of location-based games or geo-games might increase urban cycling engagement and, through this engagement, crowdsource cycling data collection to allow cities to better comprehend cycling patterns. Consequently, the experiment followed a between-groups design to measure the impact of virtual rewards provided by the Cyclist Geo-c application on the levels of intention, satisfaction, and engagement with cycling. Then, to identify the frictions which potentially inhibit bicycle commuting, we analysed the bicycle trips crowdsourced with the geo-game. Our analysis relied on a hexagonal grid of 30-metre cell side to aggregate trip trajectories, calculate the friction intensity and locate the frictions. The thesis reports on the results of an experiment which involved a total of 57 participants in three European cities: M¨unster (Germany), Castell ´o (Spain), and Valletta (Malta). We found participants reported higher satisfaction and engagement with cycling during the experiment in the collaboration condition. However, we did not find a significant impact on the participants’ worldview when it comes to the intentions to start or increase cycling. The results support the use of collaboration-based rewards in the design of game-based applications to promote urban cycling. Furthermore, we validated a procedure to identify not only the cyclists’ preferred streets but also the frictions faced during cycling analysing the crowdsourced trips. We successfully identified 284 places potentially having frictions: 71 in M¨unster, Germany; 70 in Castell ´ o, Spain; and 143 in Valletta, Malta. At such places, participants recorded trip segments at speeds below 5 Km/h indicating a deviation from a hypothetical scenario with a constant cycling speed. This thesis encompasses the cyclist and city perspectives of offering virtual incentives in geo-games and crowdsourcing cycling data collection to better comprehend cycling conditions in cities. We also compiled a set of tools and recommendations for researchers, practitioners, mobile developers, urban planners and cyclist associations interested in fostering sustainable transport and the use of bicycles

A Serious Game Approach for the Electro-Mobility Sector

Serious Games (SGs) represent a new approach to improve learning processes more effectively and economically than traditional methods. This paper aims to present a SG approach for the electro-mobility context, in order to encourage the use of electric light vehicles. The design of the SG is based on the typical elements of the classic "game" with a real gameplay with different purposes. In this work, the proposed SG aims to raise awareness on environmental issues caused by mobility and actively involve users, on improving livability in the city and on real savings using alternative means to traditional vehicles. The objective of the designed tool is to propose elements of fun and entertainment for tourists or users of electric vehicles in the cities, while giving useful information about the benefits of using such vehicles, discovering touristic and interesting places in the city to discover. In this way, the user is stimulated to explore the artistic and historical aspects of the city through an effective learning process: he/she is encouraged to search the origins and the peculiarities of the monuments.Comment: This paper has been presented at 2019 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics (SMC

Smart contract and web dapp for tracing sustainability indicators in the textile and clothing value chain

Mestrado em Engenharia Informática na Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão do Instituto Politécnico de Viana do CasteloNa sociedade atual, o têxtil e vestuário é um dos maiores setores de mercado do mundo. O rápido crescimento desta indústria está a ter impactos sem precedentes na sustentabilidade do planeta, respondendo por consequências negativas ambientais, sociais e de saúde. As tendências da fast-fashion, juntamente com a falta de transparência na cadeia de valor têxtil global, somam-se a cenários desfavoráveis para o mundo, à medida que os níveis crescentes de poluição e consumo de recursos dentro da cadeia de valor atingem máximos históricos a cada ano que passa. O ciclo de vida de uma peça de roupa precisa de se adaptar a um modelo económico regenerativo em vez de linear, que acaba no equivalente a um caminhão de lixo de produtos têxteis sendo descartado num aterro sanitário a cada segundo [1]. Não só as indústrias precisam de reformular os seus processos para circularizar as suas cadeias de valor e promover ações sustentáveis, mas também os consumidores precisam de participar do processo de manter os produtos no círculo da cadeia de valor, pois cabe a eles decidir o destino final de um produto vestuário aquando o seu fim da vida útil. Com estas questões em mente, esta dissertação visa desenvolver duas soluções que possam mitigar os problemas a cima mencionados e promover ações sustentáveis rumo a uma economia circular na cadeia de valor do têxtil e vestuário. Uma solução business-to-business baseada em smart contracts do Hyperledger Fabric para gerir a cadeia de valor do têxtil e vestuário com funcionalidade de rastreabilidade foi desenvolvida como prova de conceito para apoiar as reivindicações de sustentabilidade dos participantes na cadeia de valor, da fibra à peça final de vestuário. A actual funcionabilidade de rastreabilidade desenvolvida no smart contract fornece aos operadores da cadeia de valor a capacidade de rastrear um lote até à sua origem, contudo, também limita a escalabilidade devido ao aumento exponencial do tamanho do bloco, especialmente se considerarmos uma cadeia de valor circular. Para os consumidores, foi proposta uma aplicação descentralizada business-to-consumer-to-consumer com elementos de eco-gamificação para promover o envolvimento e motivação do utilizador para a realização de tarefas que contribuam para a adoção de uma economia circular na cadeia de valor do têxtil e vestuário. Após testar a usabilidade da aplicação com o questionário AttrakDiff, concluiu-se que o sistema precisa de focar a sua usabilidade em prol de um produto orientado à tarefa em vez da orientação pessoal atual da aplicação a fim de promover ações que contribuam para a economia circular da cadeia de valor do têxtil e vestuário.In today’s society, Textile and Clothing (T&C) is one of the biggest market sectors world wide.The sheer size and fast growth of this industry is having unprecedented impacts on sustainability, accounting for negative environmental, social and health consequences. The fast-fashion trends along side the lack of transparency in the global T&C value chain add up to unfavorable scenarios for the world as the increas- ing levels of pollution and resource consumption within the value chain reach historic highs with every year that passes. The lifecycle of a clothing item needs to adapt to a regenerative economic model instead of a linear one that ends up in the equivalent of a garbage truck full of textiles being disposed into a landfill every second [1]. Not only do the industries need to revamp their processes to circularize their value chains and promote sustainable actions, but the consumers also need to partake in the process of keeping the products in the value chain loop as it is up to them to make the final decision upon the end-of-life of an item of clothing. With these issues in mind,this dissertation aims to develop two solutions that can mitigate the aforementioned problems and promote sustainable actions towards a circular economy in the T&C value chain. A Proof-of-Concept (PoC) Business-to-Business (B2B) T&C value chainmanagement smart contract solution builton Hyperledger Fabric with traceability features was developed to support the sustainability claims of participants in the value chain, from fiber to garment. The current traceability feature developed into the smart contract provides value chain operators the capabilities to trace a batch back to its origin, however, it also constraints scalability due to the exponential in crease in block size specially if considering a circular value chain. For the consumers, a Business-to-Consumer-to-Consumer (B2C2C) Decentralized Application (DApp) was proposed with eco-gamification elements fo rpromoting the user’s engagement and motivation to complete tasks that contribute for the adoption of a circular economy in the T&C value chain. After testing the consumer DApp’s usability with the AttrakDiff survey, it was concluded that the system needs to focus it susability towards a task-oriented product instead of the current self-oriented results in order to promote actions that contribute to the circular economy of the T&C value chain