SPVINTRO
SPVINTRO
AUTOMATED MOBILITY PLATFORM
When someone enters an airport, university building, large healthcare facility, mall, or other distributed community they immediately fall into a transportation gap. This is especially true for the elderly, obese and anyone living with a disability, or injury that prevents them from being able to self ambulate.
One of the most pressing challenges facing the public transportation sector is the first mile/last mile problem, which refers to the distance a commuter needs to travel from a transit stop to their destination. While options are available to bring people to the entry point of large-scale facilities– such as airports, universities, conference halls, and medical campuses – they only provide transportation to high-traffic locations outside of these facilities and leave commuters to walk the first or last leg of their trip. This creates a significant barrier to approximately 25% of commuters nationwide and disproportionately affects disadvantaged communities, including the elderly, disabled, and systemically underserved populations.
The Automated Mobility Platform system (AMPs) concept was conceived to resolve these transportation challenges. With accelerating commercial interest in cleaner, smarter road-based mobility solutions – such as micro-mobility and autonomous shuttles – many emerging technologies have the potential to increase travel and address issues at the regional level. However, solutions required to travel within large and complex environments that are typically accessed by walking remain an unmet, growing, and urgent need.
Manual Wheelchairs, and utility vehicles (UTVs) like electric golf carts, require manual labor (which accounts for more than 90% of the cost in providing this service), and a constantly fluctuating staff schedule to meet demand and provide consistent and high-quality services. Facilities rely on low-cost labor to make this service economically viable, yet historically experience high turnover as a result of the physical demands, poor pay, and unpredictable schedules required of the job.
AMP Single Passenger Vehicle (SPV): These light-weight energy efficient vehicles offer transportation solutions for PRM that need help traveling from their drop of point at the facility or building entrance to their destination and back. Their size and maneuverability allow them to be used in a variety of locations, conveyance systems such as elevators and other transportation systems that can accommodate power wheelchairs.
SPV Journey
SPV Journey
Journey
The team at LUCI dug deep into the mobility challenges within airports by studying different facilities and the way people move through them. This resulted in a large amount of data that was used to inform what the potential user journey looks like using an AMP. This journey needed to be visualized in a singular storyboard for all stakeholders to understand the vision of the project.
Starting with elevation view we began to map out a single users travel journey and highlighted specific moments to convey the human interactions throughout. Below is the entire scrolling storyboard that shows what the user journey could look like with AMPs integrated into the facility.
SPV DEV
SPV DEV
DEV
In parallel to exploring the user experience the LINK team was developing the vehicle from initial sketches through pilot vehicles for demonstration. After a deep dive into the research LUCI had compiled we began sketching different forms knowing that we would need elements such as a display, luggage storage, and a complete sensor array. In our sketch exploration we knew we would need sensors above the users head and in front of their feet for visibility of the environment needed for autonomous travel.
SPV FAB
SPV FAB
FAB
SPV FUTURE
SPV FUTURE
