Overview
Sector: Travel and Transport
Duration: 6 weeks
Description: Group project with MA Service Design Students (4 students).
Stakeholders: This project was done in collaboration with the Southwark Council and Service Future Labs at London College of Communication.
Supported by Living Streets, Team London Bridge, and residents of Southwark.
Methods Used
Horizon Scanning, Speculative design,
Rapid Prototyping,
Research through design, Testing, Interviews, Backcasting.
Summary
In 2019, the London borough of Southwark declared a climate emergency and pledged to become carbon neutral by 2030. The collaboration between Southwark Council and Service Futures Lab presented a unique challenge to our team - to envision a sustainable future for travel and transport in the borough using speculative design methodologies. In response to the brief, we designed Southwark Coin, a local currency that incentivises people to use active modes of transport, thereby reducing the use of polluting vehicles. It can be earned by walking, cycling or scooting, and can be used to buy healthy and sustainable products from local stores on the high streets of Southwark.
Feature
This project was selected to be displayed at the Dutch Design Week 2021.
https://ddw.nl/en/programme/5811/southwark-coin
Problem
Space
In London, half of the nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter air pollution is estimated to stem from road transport.
(Centre For London, 2019)
One of the key aims of Southwark's carbon neutral strategy was to get residents’ to shift to active travel (Southwark Council, 2020). To design for this, we focused on changing behaviours to help people adopt sustainable ways of getting around.
Research
Process
We took a speculative approach and asked what if questions as a method of exploration and provoking conversation. Some initial questions to encourage active travel were —
What if owning carbon cars became too expensive?
What if unnecessary travel was banned?
What if travelling by polluting vehicles was made inconvenient?
Journey Mapping
To understand people’s motivations and behaviours, we mapped out a few users’ journeys and identified the barriers to not choosing sustainable means of travel, particularly walking and cycling.
Key Insights
Through interviews and secondary research, we identified some key insights that built the foundations for further speculations -
We learnt that rewarding or incentivising people’s sustainable behaviour as opposed to penalising unsustainable behaviour would be more effective and ethical from a social justice lens.
1. Incentivising over
penalising
To achieve a truly carbon neutral future scenario, we had to consider the borough as a place of economic and cultural activity that flourishes primarily due to the provision of travel systems.
We found that in Southwark, on average 60% of the households do not own a car (The 15-minute city: a London case study, 2021), and rely on public transport. In order to encourage people to walk and cycle more, they needed a strong motivation.
2. Active Travel
3. Travel beyond
transport
Based on these three key realisations, we conceptualised a preferable future Step Coin, and used physical prototypes to provoke conversation with stakeholders.
Prototyping - Round 1
StepCoin, uses people’s steps as currency, incentivising them to walk more and use the currency to shop locally and help regenerate their high streets. We proposed that the value of StepCoin would be generated from taxing carbon cars.
Image 2 : StepCoin
The prototypes created showed the different touch points in the journey of an individual interacting with StepCoin. Conversations highlighted that in the StepCoin system it wasn’t clear who would actually benefit or save money in this system.
Prototyping - Round 2
We speculated further - What if Southwark Council was to accept a certain percentage of business rates from local businesses in StepCoin? This could encourage businesses to accept StepCoin payments, ensuring more footfall to the local high streets.
Further interviews with experts highlighted that introducing benefits on business rates for local businesses would not be viable for Southwark Council as the majority of taxes collected go to the central government.
Experts suggested we consider the possibility of StepCoin being a locally funded scheme, possibly by Public Health England (PHE). This pushed us to understand people’s behaviours - It was clear that people are more motivated by personal health over collective action towards sustainability and climate change.
Moreover, I encouraged the team to gather quantitative evidence on the economic benefits of active travel for local health systems. This data was used to evidence the value of StepCoin to local health initiatives and funding schemes -
Whereas, if Londoners walked or cycled for 20 minutes each day the NHS would save £1.7 billion over 25 years.
The estimated cost of physical inactivity in Southwark exceeds
£17 million each year.
(Southwark Council, 2017)
(Centre For London, 2019)
Finally, we asked the speculative question -
What if active travel made you healthier and wealthier?
Outcome
In the world of 2034, Southwark Coin is a local currency incentivising people to use active modes of transport thereby reducing the use of polluting vehicles. It can be easily earned as you walk, cycle or scoot and used to buy healthy and sustainable products from your local stores on the high street.
In this future world, there is a shift in the power dynamic from motor vehicles to pedestrians. Carbon emissions due to transport are under control and everyday services are easily accessible due to the realisation of a 15-minute city. People live healthier lifestyles and are empowered to make positive economic decisions in their everyday life by supporting the local community.
Service
Values
The three key aspects that make the existence of Southwark Coin a preferable future are -
Southwark Coin illustrates the amount of carbon emissions saved if that particular journey was made by a polluting vehicle instead, allowing the council to better measure success in combating climate change in the borough.
1. Sustainability
Southwark Coin supports local businesses by enabling people to travel to them in sustainable ways. Since the currency can be used to buy only healthy, local and sustainable products, a larger number of local businesses that meet the sustainability goals of the borough would be encouraged on the high streets.
2. Local Business
By promoting active travel, Southwark Coin tackles the negative effects of physical inactivity and on people’s personal health and the wider health systems like the NHS. It also encourages consumption of healthy food, contributing to the overall health of the residents.
3. Public Health
Next
Steps
While detailing the future concept, we realised that the existence of something like Southwark Coin has wider implications that will need to be acted upon. It would mean -
-
infrastructure changes for more accessible streets,
-
making the benefits of Southwark Coin accessible for people with mobility issues,
-
ensuring people do not continue using unsustainable modes of transport in parallel,
-
and improving the quality of goods available at local businesses.
Learnings
While the outcome was lauded by the Southwark Council, conversations about value highlighted that - there is a need for public services to have long term vision and budgeting across sectors for prevention practices like tackling climate change.
As a service designer, my role is to help break these silos and aid collaboration between public and private bodies, to create a positive impact on the people and the climate.
These discussions made me realise that people need to be educated on how different sectors and services can work together to solve complex problems.
