Making Ticket Vending Machines (TVM) more accessible for all.
The project came to inception during HackTrain 5.0, with the aim of creating a product which tackles customer service and user experience in the rail industry. Something that we've all experienced is the frustrating and confusing experience of buying train tickets at stations.
The DFT (Department For Transport, UK) have found that there was a high rate of user failures and the lack accessibility for disabled users when purchasing at ticketing machines (more in the useful links section). Tom came up with a novel solution to improve the ticket machine purchasing experience without the use of additional hardware with the aim of reducing the number of steps to purchase a ticket.
This project started as the output of a HackTrain5: https://twitter.com/thehacktrain?lang=en
More about Shortcut be found her: https://devpost.com/software/chhhchhhchhhhhh
By using the common solution of QR codes we're able to quickly identify which ticket machine a user is trying to use and therefore load the users preferences directly to the ticket machine itself - including: accessibility details, favourite destinations and railcards.
This allows us to customise the ticket machine user experience and therefore reduces the ticket purchasing steps from 9 to 4.
All this with no additional hardware.
- A user creates a profile within the mobile app. This includes:
- Name and age
- Favorite destinations
- Accesibility details (High Contrast, Large Text)
- Preferred settings (including: class, type of journey)
- Rail cards
- Preferred language
- Next time the user goes to buy a ticket they activate the QR scanner in the app
- Scan the QR code
- The TVM automatically picks up your profile and customizes the user's experience based on their preferences
- Customer pickes their journey and pays
We built Shortcut with usability in mind. Heidi our designer used her experience to create a design that is both familiar to existing users but also strips away the annoying parts of purchasing a ticket.
The technical solution designed by Kevin is elegant and keeps in mind security and data privacy by only transmitting non-sensitive data to the TVM (i.e. userId).
This project uses:
- NodeJS
- React-Native
- HTML/CSS
- Firebase [https://firebase.google.com/]
This project is separated into 3 distrinct projects:
- Mobile app
- TVM
- Backend code
The utilises Firebase [https://firebase.google.com/]. It's an easy way to stand up a database and a notification service.
Follow this guide to create an instance: [https://firebase.google.com/docs/web/setup] Use the Node.js instructions.
npm install -g firebase-tools //You will also need firebase-tools install globally
Go to your Firebase console and press "Project Overview", switch to the "Cloud Messaging" tab and copy your Service Key.
cd backend
npm install
copy you service key into backend/index.js:
var key = '';
firebase serve --only functions // pushes up the Cloud Function
The mobile application written in React Native using Expo and therefore requires the Expo Cli to be install globally. To install Expo: https://docs.expo.io/versions/latest/
cd mobile
npm install
Populate the Env.js file with your environment's Firebase credentials:
dev: {
API_KEY: "",
AUTH_DOMAIN: "",
DATABASE_URL: "",
PROJECT_ID: "",
STORAGE_BUCKET: "",
MESSAGING_SENDER_ID: ""
}
The TVM code is written in simple HTML and CSS to start that:
cd tvm
firebase serve -p 8081
Go to your browser and navigate to http://localhost:8081
Generate a QR code for your TVM:
Although we chose to use Firebase as a backend solution, there is no reason that customer preferences and details could not be pre-populated and drawn from data federated from train operators, Department For Transport (DFT) and other data sources. This would provide even more extensibility for the Shortcut service.
We created this service to cater primarily for disabled and elderly users. However the idea is extensible to people who's primary language isn't English and might be useful in other scenarios where customisation can help make the user experience more enjoyable.
ORR passenger rail usage: http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/28013/passenger-rail-usage-2017-18-q4.pdf
ORR (2017) Ticket Vending Machines Review: February 2017 http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/24048/ticket-vending-machines-review-february-2017.pdf
Department for Transport (2017) Action Plan: Information on Rail Fares & Ticketing Progress Report: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/669746/action-plan-information-on-rail-fares-ticketing.pdf
RDG (2016) Ticket Vending Machines: Design Guidelines https://www.raildeliverygroup.com/about-us/publications.html?task=file.download&id=469771183
ORR (2017) Research into Passengers’ experience of Ticket Vending Machines: http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/24046/research-into-passengers-experience-of-ticket-vending-machines-february-2017.pdf
Transport Focus (2010) Ticket Vending Machine Usability: Qualitative Research https://www.transportfocus.org.uk/research-publications/publications/ticket-vending-machine-usability-qualitative-research/
DWP Family Resources Survey (2015/16): https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/600465/family-resources-survey-2015-16.pdf
There are numerous legal and policy frameworks which are in place to help ensure that rail transport is accessible:
- Equality Act 2010
- Accessible rail stations: design standards code of practice
- Disabled Peoples’ Protection Policy
- Access for All
- Railways (Interoperability) Regulations 2011
- Rail Vehicle Accessibility (Non Interoperable Rail System)
- Regulations 2010
For information on users with disabilities particular problems with TVMs have a look at page 44 onwards of the transport focus report https://www.transportfocus.org.uk/research-publications/publications/ticket-vending-machine-usability-qualitative-research/#
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