Interactive MTR station

Interactive MTR station
The passengers waiting in an MTR station can interact with the passengers inside MTR though this interactive system to let them know which carriage has less people, so they know where to wait. The system performs this task spatially without signage or iconography by literally changing the space to suggest where people should stand to wait. People can also push the frames together to send to the controle centre a request of arranging more trains. Last but not least, the interactive station also provide a new experience of waiting by allowing passengers to share digital information on the frames, literally turning it into a digital graffiti wall.

mechanism already worked

prototype

system flow chart

Concept Details

Model with sensors and motors




















left wiew
Top view

Concept modification

The original concept is about using fames to deliver the information inside the MTR to the people waiting in the station. The people enter the station could know which carriage have less people by one glance of those frames. And also because the more people in this carriage, the frames in the waiting area will come out more, which means the space for waiting will be less and less people could wait here.

After 2 meetings, we all agree that the suggestion from Michael is a good one. People could push the frames to give a message to the controlling centre that this waiting space is really full now. So the controlling centre could send out more MTR to at this period of time, which means the MTR system working in a flexible and reactive way.

(Photoshop-People pushing the frames)

Even though, we still think the concept is not rich enough, so kept discussing and finally comes out an idea about using sharing to strengthen the identify of this stop and provide people a happy instead of boring traveling experience. This sharing system enable travelers to upload interesting stuff like photos to the centre database, and these stuff will be projected inside the carriage and the frames in the next stop. We believe this system could work really well in the context of Hong Kong, because the people in Hong Kong are really varied and with different identity. And those photos could really strengthen and advertise the local culture of that stop, for example people get on the MTR in Disneyland stop will definitely share some interesting stuff about Disneyland, so the stops close to Disneyland will be full of Disneyland atmosphere, we could imagine how lovely that will be. The things people shared will be stored in the website of MTR too, so people go back home could further explore these interesting things, comment on them and even contact those senders, which could create a lot of so called “MTR friendship”.

(Photoshop-Disneyland images projected on the frames)

The model we are going to make

We are going to implement the part that when people inside the MTR move, the frames also moves, some blend more and some blend less, so the whole station like a living thing.

(Photoshop-frames moving)

When the MTR is arrive this station, the frames become flat one by one following the speed of the arriving MTR, so when the MTR stops, the whole station will become a normal station with no frame blending out.

(Photoshop-half of the frames become flat as half of the MTR reach the station)