The second co-creation workshop in Thessaloniki, within the CIPTEC project “Crucial Trends and Challenges which Public Transport is facing. Answers given by formulating innovative ideas”, was held on the 9th of December, 2016. The workshop was organized by AUTh and took place at the new co-working space of OK!Thess initiative.
A warm welcome of the participants was made both by Mr. Kostas Tramantzas, representative of the OK!Thess initiative and by the CIPTEC coordinator Prof. Aristotelis Naniopoulos, who gave a short presentation about CIPTEC project and the main trends that characterize the Public Transport sector currently (or are expected to have a great impact on it in years to come). More than 30 participants from different backgrounds attended the workshop and worked together towards the improvement of trips by Public Transport within the city of Thessaloniki. The main aim of the workshop was the formulation of innovative ideas in order for Public Transport to deal with the crucial trends and challenges.
In the beginning, participants broke the ice by introducing themselves and answering to an initial question. They were asked to express their first feeling, experience or word when they think about Public Transport in their city. After that, participants were asked to imagine and describe the ideal trip using Public Transport systems. As this session was implemented by using the “Appreciative Inquiry” method, participants did not need to limit their imagination and creativity.
During the next session, participants were asked to focus on the desired /ideal situation and try to come up with innovative ideas in order to improve the current situation towards this target. Four different issues were discussed, which corresponded to one or more of the most significant trends: (1) Public Transport services for people with disabilities, (2) Exploitation of innovative technologies on Public Transport systems, (3) Lifestyle and Public Transport systems and (4) Development of application-games for increasing the share of Public Transport systems (Gamification).
In fact, this session was conducted by using the “World Café”, the “Role playing”, and the “Conceptual mapping” methods and participants were asked to think of innovative solutions which would help them realize their ideal trip and respond to the major challenges of the Public Transport sector while fulfilling the users’ needs, as these were identified in WP1 of CIPTEC project. In total, thirty one (31) ideas were presented and assessed by the participants using the “Dot voting” method. According to the participants the two most interesting/innovative ideas were the development of the “social – bus” application and the “environmental trip” application.
The former is an application with the aid of which every commuter would be given the opportunity to interact with other commuters that might interest him/her. The latter would count the CO2 emissions, inform the users about their personal CO2 footprint and encourage them to travel more by Public Transport, by “adopting” a tree at the Amazon area, or even in their city or donating a percentage of the ticket price to actions which support environmental protection (such as tree planting).
At the end of the workshop, participants were asked to fill-in a workshop assessment questionnaire about the on-site organization of the workshop, the provided venue’s facilities, the facilitation team etc. To sum up, most of the participants expressed a positive view about the workshop as a whole and the specific topics of it.