Service Design for Walking in the City of Turku
Gronskyte, Auguste (2022)
Gronskyte, Auguste
2022
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022061417881
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022061417881
Tiivistelmä
Walking is a sustainable and free transport mode. Increasing the share of walking can provide social, political, economic, and environmental benefits to the city, community, businesses, and other stakeholders. Well planned and designed streets can encourage walking, but a pedestrian unfriendly urban environment can become a barrier for walking. By knowing what prevents people from walking and what encourages them to walk more, cities can make changes to the existing environment. Some changes might be easy to do, while others may require more major changes to existing infrastructure. The commissioner of this thesis is the city of Turku, which aims to increase the share of walking and is looking for a solution to get people to walk more instead of driving.
This thesis uses the service design approach to identify users and their needs and challenges for enabling and supporting their walking opportunities in the city of Turku. The objective of this research is to establish which factors should be considered when preparing walking conditions for different user profiles. This involves discovering how personas experience different routes and what the role of walking is in their travelling chains.
Service design methods and tools are applied in this research. The data is collected with the help of observation, contextual interviews, cultural probes, and service safari. Benchmarking is used to compare existing practices used in other European cities for the promotion of walking. Service design tools, such as stakeholder and ecosystem maps, personas, customer journey maps, a service model canvas and a service blueprint, are used to analyze and visualize the data, results, and the concept.
The results show that people perceive walking in Turku as a leisure activity rather than a mode of transport. Preconditions for walking in Turku are considered to be on a sufficient level. Weather is seen both as a barrier and an enabler for walking. Long distances and busy timetables during weekdays prevent people from walking. Pedestrian safety, especially in relation to the driving styles of e-scooters and bicycles, street lighting, pavement quality and attractiveness of the routes are areas in need of improvement. The results of this thesis are presented in the form of five personas and giving recommendations for improving and making walking in Turku more attractive.
This thesis uses the service design approach to identify users and their needs and challenges for enabling and supporting their walking opportunities in the city of Turku. The objective of this research is to establish which factors should be considered when preparing walking conditions for different user profiles. This involves discovering how personas experience different routes and what the role of walking is in their travelling chains.
Service design methods and tools are applied in this research. The data is collected with the help of observation, contextual interviews, cultural probes, and service safari. Benchmarking is used to compare existing practices used in other European cities for the promotion of walking. Service design tools, such as stakeholder and ecosystem maps, personas, customer journey maps, a service model canvas and a service blueprint, are used to analyze and visualize the data, results, and the concept.
The results show that people perceive walking in Turku as a leisure activity rather than a mode of transport. Preconditions for walking in Turku are considered to be on a sufficient level. Weather is seen both as a barrier and an enabler for walking. Long distances and busy timetables during weekdays prevent people from walking. Pedestrian safety, especially in relation to the driving styles of e-scooters and bicycles, street lighting, pavement quality and attractiveness of the routes are areas in need of improvement. The results of this thesis are presented in the form of five personas and giving recommendations for improving and making walking in Turku more attractive.