User Needs

Usability is a key determinant for the successful adoption and use of any system that involves human-machine interaction. There is now a growing body of evidence to support this point of view. Consider the now very popular tablet. While touch screen, LCD, WiFi, multimedia technologies have been around for over a decade – and Tablet PCs existed in the 90s, tablets did not take off until the creation and release of iPads. Indeed there have been technological improvements which have contributed to its success, but more importantly, it was due to better usability.

Therefore it is important that ITS systems and services are designed with usability in mind.

There are three key aspects to usability:

-     Effectiveness – Can users complete tasks, achieve goals through the use of the SafeTRIP system and/or services?

-     Efficiency – how much effort do users require to complete tasks or achieve their goals? (measured as duration)

-     Satisfaction – how easy it is to use the system or services?

In order to design ITS services that are effective, efficient and satisfy the user, it is important to have an understanding of the user needs. Each need is typically based on an existing issue or hurdle which prevents the user from performing a task efficiently or achieving his/her goal within the work environment under certain conditions. The task or goal could be individual or a result of the requirements and responsibility of the job or organization (e.g. for road operators to improve safety).

This tutorial will present the current and emerging needs of key stakeholders in the transport area. The primary stakeholders described in this tutorial are:

-    Road operators

-    Passenger transport operators

-    Individuals – EU citizens

-    Emergency services

Other stakeholders will be referred to in this document, including Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) and telematics service providers and fleet management companies for trucks and Hazardous Goods Vehicles (HGVs). With the SafeTRIP project, an extensive user requirement capture was conducted to understand the needs of the above stakeholders in the areas of safety, security, environment, navigation and entertainment.

Some of the needs are current, while others are needs foreseen by the stakeholders following the wide adoption of ITS platforms in vehicles.

The next section introduces the methodology that was designed and used to perform the user requirements capture suitable for the SafeTRIP project. However, we believe that the approach can be used in other projects of similar scale.