Project Overview

‘Opla' is the design to bring more comfort and efficiency in public transportation such as tram or subway.

The growth of the mega cities has increased use of mass transportation and current sitting layout is not serving the needs and behaviour of the riders. It is hassle to find seats, settle down, standing up, and make way out through the crowd.

The leaning position of Opla makes it faster, easier, and more efficient for every riders. It is designed to bring utmost comfort in leaning position ergonomically and securely. Over-moulded silicon brings cushion and traction. The height control mechanism makes seat adjustable for the riders with different height and sizes.

Project Details

By 2025, 60% of the world population is expected to live in urban cities. Driven by increase in population and infrastructure, city borders are expanding outward, merging with surrounding daughter cities. Thus, forming mega cities. This formation of expansion of urbanization is and will be playing diverging impacts on personal lives and also their mobility. With continuous expansion, two major transportation methods will impact in realm of personal mobility - 'within' the city and 'between' the city.

Personal mobility especially 'within' the city will impact our main stream of transportation. By 2050, 70% of population will be riding public transportation. There are multiple reasons that impacts this forecast – concentration in large cities, raising gas price, less car-centric city space, and attention to green. It is not surprising to see that the annual ridership in top 7 cities – New York, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Moscow, Seoul, and Tokyo – reached average of 2.08 billion.

One of the main stream transportation within cities are subways. Although there are and expected to greatly increase in ridership, the current sitting layout is not addressing the shifts of the needs and behavior. Inefficient layout continues the separation between sitting and standing up users. It is hassle to move in and out of the limited space of subway car - sit, settle down, stand up, and make way out through the crowd. In sum, the current configuration has many issues - does not suit everyone, limited seats, and uncomfortable distance for privacy. Thus, development of new sitting facility is needed to promote better sitting behavior pattern and space layout arrangement.

'Opla' is the design to bring more comfort and efficiency in public transportation such as tram or subway. The leaning position of Opla makes it faster, easier, and more efficient for every riders. It is designed to bring utmost comfort in leaning position ergonomically and securely.

First, the leaning position allows faster and easier flow of movement in and out of the car. The separation of standing and sitting and the movement to access leaning points are much more coherent. It encompasses both short and long riders.

Second, slightly angled seating layout allows minimum privacy. It is natural behavior of individuals to promote their own personal space. In public space like subway, it is almost impossible to obtain personal space, often resulting in uncomfortable positioning. New layout allows more controlled eye contact, by allowing riders to not face directly to the other riders.

Third, structure and mechanism of Opla allows more comfort and customization. Simple structure allows easier maintenance of the seats. Foot rest and over-molded silicon brings comfort and traction. The height control system that allows customization for different sizes of users. The spring loaded lock that clicks inside the structure of tube allows easy adjustment with one button.

In conclusion, excessive increase use of public transit needed reinvestigation of the current status of seating layout and configuration inside its cars. Personal mobility 'within' the cities are going to bring utmost increase in public transit riders, requiring better facility. Comfortable and efficient seating configuration will be the key in these space. Oplafulfillsright needs and challenges of publictransportation riders today and future, but enhances efficiency and behavior experience.

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