To ensure successful travel services or products in the future, good technology is not enough. These elements need to merge simply, elegantly and enjoyably into the fabric of different travel activities and roles.

This three-month project began with mapping the user's travel experience; from dreaming about the journey, to planning, ticket buying, finding the train, changing trains, delays and arrivals.

The team observed travellers in stations and on trains. Informal interviews conducted with travellers and train employees provided anecdotal evidence of the strengths and weaknesses of the current Trenitalia transportation system.

Then, the team brainstormed ideas for possible services: starting from people's experiences and as well as possible technologies, which could be implemented in a 3-5 year timeframe.

Technological innovation could enable the design of digital and physical resources to improve and enlarge the range of activities that Trenitalia's passengers experience during a train journey.

A strategic move in this direction would enable Trenitalia to organise its information system to continually produce, manage and disseminate dynamic train location and condition data; this information would be globally available, and it would help personnel and passengers to make informed decisions.

Five scenarios were developed to understand the dynamics between Trenitalia Information Management System and its users. The results of the 'delay scenario' evoked the following points:

Delays happen! The reasons are manifold, but it always affects the travelling experience. Interaction design can help reducing the stress level of these experiences by:

-Providing timely information via multiple communication channels and tools

• Alerting the traveller to changes, connections and services
• Adding transparency to the travel process
• Reducing delay and connection times through dynamic information delivery

This report was presented to the Board of Trenitalia in January of 2002.

Partners: Sottsass Associati, Milan
Trenitalia
IDEO, London

Technologies: RF-ID tags, Cellular phones, Internet, Large-scale displays

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