The Complexities of Transport Service Design for Visually Impaired People: Lessons from a Bus Commuting Service

Danyang Wang, Wei-An Hsieh, Shu-Yi Chen, Hsien-Hui Tang

The customer journey of a public transport service for visually impaired people has relatively few stages, but the transitions between different channels of the customer journey are complex. They are the result of multiple roles of service providers and users, the interplay between digital and physical environments, and the influences of decision makers in public service. There are only a limited number of case studies in service design that demonstrate methods to analyse the complexity of these problems and resolve the interlinked issues.
This case study analyses the design of EyeBus, which was commissioned by the Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan and implemented in Taipei City as a public service, to illustrate the complexity of service design at different stages, including 1) problem distillation from multiple stakeholders, 2) omni-channel system design, and 3) sustainable development with multiple separate public and private sector actors. Additionally, this paper discusses the potential complexity factors in public service design and suitable design methods at each stage for future service innovation.