Human Centred Design Considerations for the Development of Sustainable Public Transportation in Malaysia

Abstract

The growing trend of private car ownership in Malaysia is increasing traffic congestion. As part of a solution, the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) chose to develop technologies for an electric bus system in Kuala Lumpur and initiated a project to design and engineer an electric bus system with a focus on Human Centred Design (HCD) principles. In order to fulfil this a total of 28-hours of user observation was conducted in Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia. Alongside this field research an online questionnaire study of future users (n = 102, Age 21–35) was conducted to further substantiate findings. As a result, we address the need for HCD considerations to be included in sustainable public transport systems in Malaysia. User observation revealed six key issues associated with the daily routine of a commuter which were then used to inform the questionnaire survey. Alarmingly, the survey revealed that over 60 per cent of respondents had never used the bus system in Kuala Lumpur stating problems such as frequency, comfort, driver attitude and bus shelter access. This provided a necessary platform for improvement resulting in eight key recommendations ranked by importance with the aim to increase bus usage in Malaysia.

Evaluating the Experience of a Postgraduate and Faculty Study Tour Program in the Field of Mental Health: A Mixed-methods Study

“…At the 2012 Australian International Education Conference, Kuys and Thompson-Whiteside presented their reflections on their students’ study tour to Asia (Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Taiwan). 14 The trip was deemed successful since 18% of all the graduating undergraduates had completed an international experience, which was equal to their national average of almost 12%.…”

Transit Oriented Development used to formulate design guidelines for an improved bus network in Malaysia

“…Kuala Lumpur has the density which gives locational advantage for using the TOD approach to be successfully implemented. Human centred design studies conducted prior to this study (Kuys et al 2015;Kuys et al 2022) shows there are more pedestrians negotiating their way around public infrastructure than those using the public transportation options available. Understanding human behavioural factors is critical to achieving the successful implementation of sustainable public transport systems through more effective and more considered urban design.…”

“…Most current public transportation models operate at the metropolitan scale and fail to include aspects of local scale walking and cycling (Stradling et al, 2007). However, there should be an emphasis on walking and cycling support when developing a public bus system with a human centred design approach (Kuys et al, 2022). This is particularly important to Kuala Lumpur where temperatures rarely drop below 27 degrees Celsius.…”

Systemic Design Strategies for Shaping the Future of Automated Shuttle Buses

“…The urgent need for sustainable development in human society is also pushing design practitioners to take responsibility to engage in a sociotechnical system level of changes [21,[23][24][25]. Specifically in the area of public transportation development, which has societal implications, recent studies have also pointed to the importance of drawing on the discipline of design [26].…”