The TramMate Project

Conducted as a part of the Interaction Design for Emerging Technologies PhD project, the TramMate project was a collaborative research project on the design and evaluation of mobile information systems conducted in collaboration with local researchers and IT industry in Melbourne, Australia. The TramMate project investigated the potentials of supporting public transportation use by means of location-based information services on mobile devices. Investigating into this challenge, we explored current travel practices and possible future practice of business employees as they traveled to appointments in the inner city of Melbourne. On the basis of our fieldwork we designed a location-based information service for mobile devices such as PDAs and mobile phones. A prototype system was evaluated it in both laboratory settings as well as in the field on board trams in Melbourne, Australia.