Rate your traffic light

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Recently launched in Graz, Austria: the Traffic Check platform that allows citizens to provide feedback on their experience with the signaling controls of 315 of the city’s traffic lights. 

The project went live early November and has seen 800 citizen ratings on the first day alone. The city pledges to use the feedback to better calibrate the signals for a better experience by all groups concerned (pedestrian, bike, car, public transport, etc).

To me this seems a great way to bring the citizens back into the loop to ‘control the controls’.

Uber and the “oh, I already payed for the ride? great!” experience

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Leaving aside the controversy about some of Uber’s operation, this is a post about a specific aspect that I find truly remarkable in an Uber ride experience compared to a conventional taxi ride: the experience of the payment process (or the discreet absence thereof).

A conventional taxi confronts you permanently with the taximeter ticking away as the ride progresses. The meter ticks away, the price increases and you have no idea how high it will climb when you get to your destination. Will there be additional charges and what for? Will the driver accept your card? What tip should you add on top? The taxi driver at the end of this ride reveals itself in the role of the check-out clerk: presenting you with the check, swiping your card or taking your cash.

None of this is part of your experience in an Uber or Lyft ride. The payment process is banned from the actual ride experience. You contract the price before you commit to the call and commence the ride. The modalities of interaction with this payment system are deeply ambient in nature: The payment process starts when you take a seat in the car, when your geographic location aligns with that of the driver’s device. And the payment process concludes when the trip is complete, when your location is detected to coincide with the indicated destination of your ride. So it is quite literally your ‘moving through space’, your being ambient in terms of ‘going around’ that represents your interaction with Uber’s payment system.

During the ride itself there is only… well, the ride. And the driver is only just that, your driver or, in best cases, an excellent partner for conversation. The ride starts and ends with a greeting, digital agents take care of an already agreed upon payment. Terrific! Now, let’s make this clear to all those airlines that have recently started to turn their stewards into check-out clerks for your increasingly payed-for on-board food and drinks…

Quote

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The fact that man is capable of action means that the unexpected can be expected from him, that he is able to perform what is infinitely improbable.
Hannah Arendt

San Francisco Parklets: Public-Private-Partnership at its best

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What a glorious transformation to turn a parking spot into a cafe. Public Parklets, as seen in San Francisco, appear to be a great form of public-private-partnership (PPP). As part of its Pavement to Parks initiative, the city offers to adopt parking lots for conversion into places for people to linger, rest, interact,… Parklet hosts are often street side facing cafes or restaurants. Upon approval of the request, the host business pays a one time fee of approximately $800-$2000 (depending on the number of parking meters that need be removed) and an annual fee after the first year of under $250. The cost of the installation itself is also covered by the host. While this offers a cost effective al fresco seating for guests of the host, San Francisco’s regulations require that ‘all seating is open to the public’. Everybody seems to win.

Here are all San Francisco parklets on a map. The project is part of the Better Streets initiative and questions are answered at San Francisco Public Works. Information about fees and other aspects are also mentioned here (verify for updates).

When will you be inviting the public to the parklet outside your house?

Connected bike grips provide tactile feedback for navigation

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Ever tried to ride the bike finding your path by staring at your smartphone’s map app in one hand, the other hand trying to keep the bike on track?
I keep being intrigued by ways to bring the real-time and location-based information potential of the smartphone into our physical environment to interact with, without having to use a (touch-)display as an interface. And this is a good example: bike handles that you simply mount onto your own bike and that connect to your smartphone’s map, providing you cues for when to turn left or right. Right handle tap, turn right. Left handle tap, turn left,… and there you are at your destination. Easy, no?
Well done Boreal Bikes, the Germany based company founded by Canadian born Louis-P. Huard.

Public bike speedometer

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From the size of this device it is clear what people in Graz seem to believe to be the biggest speeding threat in town. The looming perennial question is: will this become the new go-to destination to measure speed records publicly?

This interactive signage is positioned in what is a ‘shared street’ for both bikers and pedestrians only. Increasingly, in this particular street, fast bikers get i to conflict with not-so-fast pedestrians, with both getting upset. The question is how to mediate between the two modes of locomotion – spatially or temporally. This signage attempts to make bikers as ‘slow’ as pedestrians (under 5km/h) – seems like a strategy to make one of the two loose out…

Public phone niches in search of ideas

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Once upon a time there were three phone boxes…
What to do with those empty niches left behind by once connected public phones? Ideas anyone?

2×2 Euro on-street sunglass vending

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As seen recently in Graz, Austria. Outside an optician’s store, a sales strategy for the busy and stylish urban walker: put 2 times 2 Euro into the dispenser and pull the lever on the latest (or not so latest) model of sunglasses for today’s urban stroll.