Human Experience in Sustainability

When I think of travel, I think of the journey involved. I think of what I am going to see, explore,

things I might discover and so on. Most importantly I think of whom I will be traveling with, how

will we be traveling and by what will we travel. My affinity with roads and paths makes me

automatically think of a road trip with a bunch of us traveling through a hot sunny afternoon to

a destination of joy. This brings me to my ideal fantasy of traveling in a fast and beautiful

machine with its openness to nature and my two good friends and I feeling the breeze swirl

around us while we listen to the ideal music soundtrack for this awesome moment of pleasure

like in the enthralling Bollywood movie " Dil Chahta Hai " (What the heart desires).

This ideal fantasy was the reason I chose my first car, my lifestyle, my clothes and even my

friends. This fantasy kept popping up every time I made an active decision about traveling, so

much so that this ideal fantasy still plays to date when I think of traveling to Art Center and

back. Here is where the realization kicked in and it dawned upon me about how that one ideal

fantasy has kept me yearning for my own personal car and space, influencing my decisions

every time whether consciously or subconsciously. And here is where human experience could

make or break the deal when approached by public transportation.

Today is the age of sustainability, the age where the RRR has now expanded to the RRRRP,

meaning Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Restore and Process (Nathan Shedroff, xi). In our whole act

of engaging sustainability we have informed ourselves with efficient material usage, various

shared resources, promoting effective waste management, propagating substitution and other

such ideas. However in this assumed “eco race” we seemed to have left out the core essence

of usage; human experience.

In the past couple of years several governments have enforced or are in the process of

promoting use of mass transportation as one of the solutions to reduce mainly street traffic,

pollution, fuel and other resource consumption. Using the mass transit is also an effective way

to save money. As said in my culture that is one part of the whole south Indian culture, the

more money you save, the more you get to spend on better things, the better life you have.

What bothers me however is this; is saving money at the cost of compromising on the fun

factor of life only to spend it later on bringing it back to shape when you’re worn out really

worth it? This question bothers me every time I hop onto a bus, a train or any mode of public

transit. Not that I am perpetually depressed with all of them, but I think of ways to improve my

journey on these modes of shared travel while trying not to pay attention to my feeling of

being miserable.

“The home should be the treasure chest of living” - Le Corbusier

I believe the very meaning of the above quote by Le Corbusier. As humans, wherever we go,

whatever we use and whatever we engage in, we make it our own. A house becomes a home

only after we make it our own, a tool becomes my tool when I make it my own and in particular

to transportation, I make a vehicle my own. This phenomenon of ‘make it my own’ does not

indicate possession of the item; it rather indicates the humble acceptance of any item and it’s

involvement in one’s life. Whether it’s your car or a rental, you make it your own through

sharing experiences while in it, indulge in fun while using it and most importantly through taking

care of it and maintaining it. This is a significant vital factor I find missing in public

transportation.

“A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body”

- Benjamin Franklin

Using the quote above lets assume the food to be human interaction and fire to be passion and

the house to be any mode of public transport while the mind and body remain the same. The

difference between a house and a home is that a house is a physical structure and the home is

the outcome of a sense of belongingness, a sense of virtue, comfort, privacy and sense of

ownership one derives from interacting with it and taking care of it. This phenomenon is seen

with people who own and rent houses and consequently personal vehicles. They make it their

own. In the case of mass public transportation however, these insights have been missing and

hence indirectly persuading people to continue using personal vehicles. Why would anyone want

to have or use something that makes them uncomfortable, powerless and detached? It will

eventually leave them feeling suppressed and depressed often forcing them to leave and find

something else.

As mentioned by Nathan Shedroff, sustainability refers to human and financial issues as much

as environmental ones. Sustainability is an approach to design and development that focuses

on environmental, social, and financial factors that are often never addressed (Nathan

Shedroff, xvii).

In order to be successfully sustainable, a system has to incorporate the above three mentioned

factors which are environmental, social and financial. I’d like to begin by assessing these

factors against the public modes of transportation I frequently access, which are the ARTS

public bus and the Art Center College of Design shuttle bus. In terms of environmental, both

systems use compressed natural gas (CNG) as fuel, which I consider as a crucial step towards

becoming ecologically friendly. In terms of financial, one is free while the other is under a dollar

per trip that makes them the most economical means in this particular zone. A taxi for the

same distance would have been an approximate of $10 for a one-way trip.

When it comes to the social factor, there seems to be no sense of sociability on the shuttle

whereas on the ARTS bus there is sociability amongst the housemaids and other service

professionals who use it. Here and on the shuttle bus respectively, it is interesting to see a

rising number of students using the bus yet a dissonance in terms of sociability seems to

prevail amongst them. These students seem to isolate themselves from one another with

assistance from their personal portable music devices and computers. To add to this, retrieved

from personal observation and personal interaction with bus users, even those who know each

other tend to keep their distance on the pretext of gaining private time to rejuvenate before

engaging in a long day of study or work. This factor got me to think, is it privacy that could

also be missing? Is that why they use secondary devices to isolate themselves? If so, apart

from the time constraint, what seems to be the cause for them to turn to personal vehicles?

“Even if you only care about humans, in order to care for humans, you need to take care of

the system (the environment) that you live in.” - Nathan Shedroff

Keeping these students in limelight, I began by dissecting what exactly this privacy factor is. In

a personal vehicle, apart from the fascination of being by oneself, pretty much most tasks

except for driving and listening to music are prohibited. One can’t talk on the mobile, text

messages or do anything else that would distract them from the wheel. In comparison, the bus

seems to provide all of this except for the ability to drive. Portable music players have

satisfied listening to music by providing it on the go and seamlessly streamed. In a car, you can

talk in private with your pals; this can be done on a bus too but with maybe a little precaution

with controlled voice volume. The issue that jumps out at me is maybe the affordability to be

you and act like yourself or to let yourself loosen up is available in a personal vehicle as

opposed to a shared vehicle. This affordability could be one of the underlying crucial reasons

for people to continuously opt for personal vehicles. I do understand that the consequences of

letting your-self go might unfold awkward scenarios, petty conflicts and glaring stares from

other passengers. A video I found is a similar scenario that depicts consequences of this one

lady singing on a train. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kmqBQhAY0Y

How can a provision be made for an affordance where students can be themselves sans any

awkwardness? Could it be compartmentalized seating? Or maybe curtains that are drawn

around them?

Personal mobility has a few attributes that persuade users to use it over shared mobility. One

factor being privacy or rather the need “to be yourself” as discussed above. Another

important factor seems to be a lacking sense of ownership. As mentioned earlier, whether one

owns a vehicle or rents it, the very act of sharing experiences with it, indulging in fun and

importantly, taking care of it and maintaining it develops this very essence of pride to see it

shine which turns into a sense of guardian ship which eventually is encompassed by the sense

of ownership as presented in the figure below.

Fig. 1 – Causal Loop Diagram of Ownership.

I had an encounter with the sense of guardianship a couple of weeks ago at Costco. Keeping in

mind hygiene, Costco offers sanitary wipes to wipe the shopping cart handles in order to wipe

of any harmful bacteria deposited by the previous user. In order to be safe, I cleaned my cart

along all areas where I may accidently touch. This interaction brought in a slight sense of

ownership when I realized I had become more careful with using the cart, parking it neatly while

I shopped, edging my way through the crowds patiently and amusingly cleaning the wheels off

any debris that was stuck in order for them to move smoothly and effectively. How could a

shopping cart used by anybody and everybody instill a sense of ownership in me? I believe it

wasn’t the shopping cart but the act of maintaining it and cleaning it brought in a sense of

guardianship, which led to this developed sense of ownership. Could offering wet sanitary

wipes for cleaning one’s seat before sitting instill a sense of guardianship on the shuttle? Or

maybe a doormat at the entrance to clean your feet once you step in? Or secure storage for

the equipment you carry?

Personalization and customization is another factor that scores personal mobility aboveshared

mobility. The very act of personalizing vehicle settings to your liking such as electronic

seat adjustment with memory function from BMW that allows you to store your seat position

settings, backrest, steering column and exterior mirror settings (BMW,

http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/technology/technology_guide/articles/seat_memory

_function.html) instills a sense of belongingness to the vehicle which enhances its guardianship

and eventually the encompassing ownership.

The ability to customize a personal vehicle as per ones liking amplifies this even further

creating a sense of unique identity a person longs for. These very attributes aren’t present in

shared/ public transportation systems. It is but obvious that it is difficult to do so like in

personal vehicles as every person on board would like to personalize and customize it to his or

her own desire which if implemented using current practices and resources will prove costly

and could go against the very essence of sustainability in dematerialization. This brings me to

my first question in this regard, which is, how do we integrate personalization and or

customization in the shuttle bus? Could it be seats with heating options? Seats with manual

adjustment like in aircrafts? Providing music channels to listen to using ones own headphones

like in aircrafts?

Another factor that was highlighted during the study was time predictability. Being human, we

have an innate affinity to predict time required to work, travel, eat, sleep and so on so that we

can calculate and plan our day beyond that. Personal mobility and walking assist our ability to

predict time. Students travelling via personal vehicles can decide whether to sleep those extra 

few minutes or reach college quickly in order to work or eat breakfast or any such activity

have the ability to predict time. In the case of the ARTS bus and the Art Center shuttle bus,

this ability is dependent on the punctuality of these afore mentioned systems and the certainty

of smooth running. The ARTS bus is known to be late by a good 10-15 minutes, which I

concluded after several experiences through the last six months of usage. The Art Center

shuttle bus on the other hand is prone to breakdowns, which cause hamper timings and hence

create uncertainty, which affects the student’s ability to predict time leaving the student

frustrated and anxious. This in-turn affects his or her anticipation to return to using the

shuttle leaving him or her using a personal vehicle. Will an electronic method of rapid informing

assist the users in predicting their times? Maybe an application that informs bus location, time

of arrival, status and bus number help students in planning? Or a marquee that could inform at

bus stop location? Could any of this in turn increase their anticipation to return? I believe trial

tests would be an intermediate solution to gauge the effectiveness of these proposals.

I believe that apart from the addition of technology and development of state of the art

transportation systems, a crucial investigation into gauging social factors and the sense of

human experience in sustainability should be well assessed before proceeding to design

systems which will directly increase receptivity of the system as whole. As mentioned before

in order for a system to be successfully sustainable, it has to incorporate the environmental,

financial and most importantly the social factors of sustainability.

Summarizing my point of view, integrating affordances for privacy, of duty of taking care of

the system in ones own way and maintenance instilling a sense of guardianship, personalization

and customization instilling a uniquely expressed identity enhance the sense of ownership and

along with this punctuality and informing will provide opportunities to the system to be involved

in student lives providing opportunities to share experiences with others eventually increasing

the anticipation to return to using the system.

“The design that is about systems solutions, intent, appropriate and knowledgeable integration

of people, planet, and profit, and the design that, above all, cares about customers as people

and not merely consumers—that’s the design that can lead to healthy, sustainable solutions.”

- Nathan Shedroff

Bibliography

 Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Restore and Process – Nathan Shedroff, page no. xi, Design

is the Problem

 Sustainability is an approach to design and development that focuses on

environmental, social, and financial factors that are often never addressed – Nathan

Shedroff, page no. xvii, Design is the Problem

 Lady singing on a train. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kmqBQhAY0Y

 Causal Loop Diagram – Ownership – Nishit Kamath – Graduate Transportation Design

 BMW electronic adjustment seats

http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/technology/technology_guide/articles/seat_

memory_function.html)