Volvo – Bus Cabin

Throughout Europe hundreds of thousands of children take a bus to school every day.UnlikeNorth America however, there are no specialized buses that are designedwith child safety inmind. Instead, a lot of themrely on buses (city and coach) for their daily commute. A fewcountries have some simple rules about behaviour regarding busesmarked “school”, however this does not seem enough to prevent school transport related accidents.


RESEARCH

Research was done through shadowing, observations and interviews. Further mock-ups, experience prototyping as well as literature on laws and regulations were used to establish a framework for the project.



Group work to uncover possibilities and problems. I chose to work on issues of: ACCESSIBILITY, VISIBILITY and INSTRUMENTATION




DEVELOPMENT




MODEL AND MOCK-UP

Mockup made on a base from an old truck cabin by using Styrofoam and cardboard. This allowed me to verify the A-pillar position, as well as instrumentation and front visibility.
Model was made all by hand and laser cutter, no RP-parts used. Model used to present the concepts to Volvo representative.



RESULTS



The solutions brought forth in this project are by no means complete answers to the problems faced by drivers today. They are intended to be a reflection on what is possible and hopefully inspire change. However to be more realistic, I based the solutions on technologies already on the market as well as chose to work on an existing Volvo bus platform. This is a result of a term project at Umea Insitute of Design focusing on Human Centered Design. Thanks to Volvo trucks and Göstas Buss for their openness and help during this project.