Final Design : Priority MRT Carriage

Mobility is more than just travel. To contribute to the society elderly must keep mobile and going to places. The essential is more than traveling. It's continuing your part of building a society. Without traveling they can't interact with the society and it will bring them to loneliness and desperation. Means to get attached with friends and family they need to move, physically and socially. Thus, what government has done to facilitate elderly-friendly in Singapore has developed very well. However, in this proposed design we have a new idea to provide a safer and hopefully a more pleasant journey an elderly can enjoy in their golden age.

A priority seats in Mass Rapit Transit (MRT) which offer them an exclusive carriage mainly for them and other passengers in special needs in general ( handicapped passengers, pregnant woman, woman with baby). By providing them this special seat in the train will show how deep is our concern towards the senior citizen in Singapore. They will receive the sense of acceptance from the government and from  the young generations as well.

Presentation Board

3D Rendering of seating plan

Top View

Details on Seating Layout :

- One car of MRT train : 8 doors ( door 13,14,15,16 )

50 seats ( 12 folding chairs + 38 chairs )

6 wheelchair bays

We design a sticker and notice board in front of the lift and glass door of the train. We choose  the purple colour because purple has been a trademark of "senior colour" in Singapore. Like the MRT Concession card for the seniors. By placing these signs the other passenger will aware to not get in the priority car. 

This car are dedicated for passengers in special need and for the elderly. 

There will be no strict rules in the operations, because we need to be flexible. If the capacity is very full this car could be filled by the normal passangers too. But the main idea of Priority Car is no more than show our care and attentions to the senior citizen as the number of their population is increasing in the future. 

Show you care. 

Sketches Development, Inspiration and Ideas of Final Design

After our observatios and research we listed some problem accured in the public trasportation that mainly happened in peak hours. 

1. Sometimes it's hard to find seats when all the passengers are squeezing inside the train. Espcesially in morning 8.30-10.00 am and after work hours. 

2. Wheel chair bays are not enough for the handicapped. In some train there is only one wheelchair bay, and lby the time there will be many handicapped passengers who will travel by train.

3. Safety. 

MRT now is quite safe for the seniors, but we added more poles to the train to prevent any accident happen when they stand up/sit down. 

Rough sketch of seats and additional poles

Cushioned chairs

Additional belt and cushioned rest for wheelchair users

Chairs Idea (2) Folding chairs

Marker Rendering Interior sketch ( Final Sketch)

Sketches Development and Brainstorming

Brainstorming on Design Idea 1

In this mahjong paper, we wrote down all the result of our research and analyzed it to start with the design idea. 

Many of the elderly complained about the estimate waiting time for bus is very long. The seats are not enough, and much more. 

Before we start to designing something, we start with this method :

We start to ask questions from the micro ( small ) things e.g. how often do you travel by public transportation?

After that, we go to macro ( bigger ) question e.g. which transportation do you take? Do you find any difficulty while taking public transportation?

After we interviewed the interviewee we know their responses and start thinking about the solution. 

1. First Idea :

Regarding  their responses of a long waiting time for a bus, we have an idea to expand the idea of "Priority Queue" that has been provided by LTA in bus interchange. But in our design, we added something different on it. We designed special seats for the elderly and  priority passenger. We also added bus estimate time on every bus stops in Singapore. 

This design is to provide elderly and other priority passengers to be the first who get into the bus. So they can have a seat first before the other passengers. 

2. Second Idea

Our second idea is a Wheelchair Accessible Bus – Special for Handicapped and Elderly

We designed a bus which has more spaces for the handicapped. This bus will be the transportation to deliver the elderly from their house to the senior care centre or hospital. The driver will pick them up and deliver them to the places they want to go. 

SOAD Lecture Series 3 Feb 2016 : DESIGN THINKING by Prof. Tay Keng Soon

In this opportunity, Mr. Tay shared his experience as a renown senior architect in Singapore about Design thinking.

Based on his perspective, design thinking separate into aspects. Science which is analytical and Design which is Synthetical. A combination between analytic and synthetic will create a balance of a design. Other aspects which related to design thinking are  :

1. Taste
2. Beauty
3. Aesthetics 
how do you blend something in your design into perfect combinations and aesthetics
4. Identity
Related to your personal branding
5. Culture
Where and from which country the people come from
6. Ideology
What brings someone to a certain way of thinking

I enjoy his presentation and I wrote down very interesting points in my notes.

To be creative, you must have confident plus a wide knowledge as well as the competent skill related to your field. This will bring you to have a better and stronger way to think and solve a problem through design. Mr. Tay shared his work done in several places in Asia and I'm impressed with his statement to architecture. He showed us architecture done by Zaha Hadid and he said that it was a criminal; that she showed the whole world that architecture is all about grand luxurious spent with very high cost. Contrasting of what Zaha had done, Mr. Tay is working more on an architecture that will have a huge impact for the nations and the world.

Site Observation

I was taking a MRT while I saw this condition. There were 2 wheelchair users and their caretaker traveling by train. The two passenger at left side are old women. The caretaker sat on the chair and the other on sat on the wheelchair. I think this in not a safe way, because the train is moving and it's hard to stabilize the chair only by holding it. This problem rarely happen, but in the future there will be more handicapped travel by train and not enough space to park wheelchair / motorized scooter will be an issue. 

This condition lead me to find a solution which create an easier and safer way to travel for the elderly.