Keywords

1 Introduction

In the city of Kaiserslautern, Germany, an urban district is being built that aims to be climate-neutral by the year 2029. To achieve this aim, innovative concepts for energy supply and mobility services are being developed, supported by digital services. The concepts describe technologies, services, and measures that are necessary to achieve climate neutrality while assuring high quality of life in the district. A group of researchers from the areas of software engineering, energy supply, and mobility are cooperating with practitioners from the city’s department of urban development to develop a mobility concept. The concept describes mainly three areas of action. First, it describes which sustainable means of transportation and which smart services regarding mobility are recommended for this district in the year 2029. The aim is for the combination of these transportation means and services to cover all mobility needs of the inhabitants and regular visitors, so that owning a car is not necessary. Second, the concept includes measures to support travelers in changing their mobility habits towards the use of sustainable transportation modes. These measures address travelers who are still using their own car. These measures are derived from psychological theories, such as the ‘Theory of Planned Behavior’ [1]. Third, the mobility concept describes physical and digital services that eliminate the need for a ride or at least reduce the distance, such as coworking spaces. All parts of the mobility concept are supposed to be developed based on the needs of inhabitants, local businesses and visitors.

The first part of the concept, regarding sustainable transportation means and smart mobility services, requires considering traveler characteristics and needs. In order to identify where action is needed, we had to answer the question “Which travelers’ needs are not covered by the currently available sustainable transportation means and services in the city of Kaiserslautern?”.

Therefore, we wanted to compare the travelers’ needs with the characteristics of the available transportation means. We faced four challenges in eliciting traveler needs, which are addressed in Sect. 2. We decided to use provisional personas to resolve the challenges.

Personas are fictitious persons who represent a real group of people. They summarize all their relevant characteristics of persons. “Provisional personas are structured similarly to real personas but rely on available data and designer best guesses about behaviors, motivations, and goals.” [2]. Since we could not find a persona template serving our purpose, we built an own persona template. Our contribution lies in the aspects being considered in the template and not in the design of it.

In Sect. 3, an introduction to personas in the area of mobility and potential characteristics for persona templates are presented. Section 4 presents the template and describe its elements. Thereafter, we describe how we used the template in Sect. 5. In Sect. 6, we discuss the template and present an evaluation plan. Finally, the conclusion summarizes this publication.

2 Motivation

In the best case, the elicitation of travelers’ needs is done with a great number of diverse travelers of this urban district. Since the district is currently under construction, there are no inhabitants and employees yet who could be asked about their needs. Even before the construction work started, there had been no inhabitants and employees for several years. Having no travelers in the district yet is just one challenge in the elicitation of travel needs. Even if there were inhabitants and employees, they would have a hard time expressing their future travel needs.

The travel needs in the year 2029 (the year the mobility concept is addressing) differ from nowadays, because the life situation will change until then. Employees will probably not need to go to their office every day, if they even have their own office at all. Their working hours will be more flexible, so they will be more flexible regarding when to arrive at and leave from the office. We learned from other projects that many people find it hard to imagine future life. When asking people to imagine a normal day in the future, they often do not consider that the way of living, the available technologies and legal regulations will have changed, even when they are told to consider this.

Another challenge is that there will be diverse groups of travelers in the district with different needs. Appropriate segmentation of the travelers into groups is necessary to make sure that the needs of all groups are considered. There are several ways to perform segmentation [3]: Travelers could be divided according to their primary transportation mode, their activities such as commuting, or their destination. Another option is categorization according to socio-demographic characteristics, such as age and gender. People’s way of life and attitudes could also be used as classification criteria. All these classification criteria were not sufficient for our purpose since there is too much variation within the suggested groups. For instance, separation by age just gives an idea about the needs, but individuals of the same age might have very different travel needs.

Furthermore, the suggested segmentation into traveler groups does not consider the use of digital services. Smart devices and software applications, among others, are necessary for planning, booking, and ticketing a trip. The requirements elicitation process in the area of software engineering needs to be integrated into the elicitation process in the area of mobility – or the other way around (Table 1).

Table 1. Overview of challenges encountered in the elicitation of travelers’ needs in the project Enstadt: Pfaff
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We decided to use provisional personas since they resolve the above-mentioned challenges. Provisional personas help to segment travelers, describe everyday life in future, consider aspects of living in the district such as close by travel destinations and commitment to the district community, and consider aspects regarding digital services. With the help of provisional personas, we were able to start working on the question “Which travelers’ needs are not covered by the currently available sustainable transportation means and services?” We searched for a persona template that provides a comprehensive picture of travel needs. As we did not find a persona template appropriate for our purpose, we developed our own template.

3 Related Work

Personas were first described in 1999 in ‘The Inmates Are Running the Asylum’ by Alan Cooper [4]. Based on his basic idea, a persona template was developed, which initially contained general characteristics, such as:

  • Name

  • Age

  • Family status

  • Place of residence.

In the field of mobility, persona templates are used, for instance, in projects for the development of an open mobility platform [5], for improving the accessibility of public transport for disabled persons [6], and for the development of apps for public transport [7].

One approach for developing persona templates in the field of mobility is introduced by Baumann [8]. He suggests starting with the collection of as many user’s characteristics and events relevant to the domain. Then, the characteristics are sorted into clusters, brought into a sequence starting with basic characteristics, and validated by domain and usability experts.

In the following, a collection of characteristics being part of persona templates in [5,6,7,8] is presented. The persona templates in these references have in common that the projects they are part of address certain transportation modes or apps. For each characteristic, a single reference is denoted but this characteristic might be mentioned in other references, too.

There are characteristics, which could also be part of persona templates used in do-mains other than mobility. However, the content of these characteristics (i.e. what is filled in in the template) refers to a specific domain.

  • Preferences (e.g. barrier-free access to vehicles [5])

  • Expectations (e.g. arrival on time [5])

  • Goals (e.g. find cheapest transport option [7])

  • Needs (e.g. something to travel safely and conveniently [6])

  • Frustrations (e.g. dirty public transport [7])

  • Challenges (e.g. mobility service not tailored to visually impaired persons [6])

  • Impairments/restrictions (e.g. partially sighted [6], taking small child along [5])

These characteristics overlap and their interpretation depends on the template designer, for instance, in [7] ‘arrival on time’ was mentioned as an attribute of goals and not of expectations.

There are also characteristics that are specific to the domain of mobility:

  • Used transportation modes (e.g. city bus, rental bike [8])

  • Motivation for using a transportation mode (e.g. for using public transport: safe late night travels [7])

  • Motivation to travel independently (indicated on five-point scale [6])

  • Travel frequency (most weekdays [7], depicted on five-point scale [6])

  • Knowledge of the area (e.g. poor knowledge [5])

  • Knowledge of the transportation system (e.g. good knowledge [5])

  • Tickets (e.g. monthly ticket, electronic ticket [5])

Tickets can be distinguished according to the ticket level, ticket type, ticket validity, ticket issued by, seating mode, class, and luggage [8]. In one persona template, the characteristic ‘IT savyness’ is included [6], which relates to tickets, if they are bought online.

Personas mostly include a short continuous text. The personas developed by Baumann (2010) only consists of the continuous text and a picture. Thus, the text can contain many characteristics. The text can be used to emphasize characteristics mentioned in other parts of the persona or add further information to it, such as:

  • Daily life (e.g. going to the office [5])

  • Activities during the trip (e.g. listening to music [7])

  • Destinations (e.g. university, office [7])

  • Purpose of travel (e.g. picking up child from school [5])

  • Personality (e.g. spontaneous [5])

  • Hobbies (e.g. reading [5])

  • Attitude towards transportation mode (e.g. likes busses [5])

The literature about traveler segmentation partly confirms and complements the mentioned characteristics. In the introduction, we mentioned several characteristics for traveler segmentation. Summarizing, these options were socio-demographic characteristics, destination, activities, used transportation mode, way of life, and attitudes [3].

4 Description of the Template

We developed the persona template based on the characteristics mentioned in related work and on our own experience in the fields of mobility, psychology and software engineering. We selected parts of the characteristics described in related work based on our experience from projects about mobility and tried to reach a trade-off between a large number of characteristics and a template that can be completed and read within a reasonable amount of time.

Our persona template is illustrated in Fig. 1. An example of a persona is illustrated in Fig. 2. Within the template, similar data is grouped together and part of the data is visualized on scales. This facilitates the comparison of different personas. We de-scribe the elements of the template in clusters and explain the relation to travel needs and requirements.

Fig. 1.
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Persona template

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Fig. 2.
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Example of a persona based on the described persona template

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4.1 Personality

We included four of the Big Five personality traits [9]: extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness. Personality traits are the basis for concrete mobility requirements.

  • An extravert person is outgoing and probably enjoys conversations with others. Therefore, an extravert person is likely to enjoy ridesharing.

  • An open person is more likely to try a new transportation mode compared to a conservative person (i.e. scoring low on openness).

  • A person scoring high on conscientiousness probably likes to plan her trip beforehand and not spontaneously.

  • A person scoring high in agreeableness is probably more cooperative and less self-interested. Such a person might accept a longer detour when giving others a lift to fulfill their needs, too.

To facilitate understanding of the personality traits, we did not label the scales with, for instance, ‘low in agreeableness’ and ‘high in agreeableness’, respectively. Instead, we selected an adjective that describes the trait. Traits can be described by a combination of adjectives. Selecting a single adjective is a limitation, which we prefer over abstract or ambiguous terms such as agreeableness. The fifth trait ‘narcism’ is not part of the persona because we do not see any clear relation to mobility.

4.2 Mid-Term Needs

A person’s personality hardly changes over their lifetime, so we also added characteristics of a person according to their on a stage of life. One characteristic is the activity level. An elderly person is likely to score low on this scale. Such a person probably has the need to get from A to B without much physical activity. Thus, using a bike is not an option. In addition, we extended the persona template with a scale for transported goods that are carried during common trips. Some people travel just with what fits in their pockets, while others generally travel with a backpack. The bipolar scale ‘need for rest & tolerance to bustle’ expresses which needs the person has towards stimulation, crowdedness, and noisiness of transportation means. This scale is related to the personality trait ‘extraversion’. Nevertheless, we consider it also as a mid-term need because we assume that the value on this scale varies during one’s life. Children and older persons are more likely to feel overstimulated in a bus as their cognitive capacities might not be sufficient to deal with overstimulation. Hence, the button on this scale would be closer to ‘need for rest’. A person who is more tolerant to bustle might not enjoy bustle but will be able to deal with it well. The last property we added was weather tolerance. This indicates whether a person is generally sensitive to certain weather conditions. For example, a sensitive person does not like to be outside in the rain, in a storm, or in the heat. As a consequence, for such persons the transportation modes need to offer protection from rain, wind, or heat. A weather-resistant person probably has no or only few requirements on a mobility service regarding the weather and would not mind taking the bicycle on a rainy day.

4.3 Attitude

The persona template includes attitudes towards sustainability, the district community, and digital services. These attitudes are relevant in the context of our Smart City project. A person scoring low on the sustainability attitude scale might require some incentive in an application for smart mobility to be motivated to use sustainable means of transport. A high score in district community reflects that the persona con-siders a good community in the district as important. This is an indicator that such a person would be willing to give someone in the district a lift. A low score in digital services indicates that such a person needs to be convinced of the benefits of digital services or that analog services need to be offered, too. In our project, attitudes are especially important for the second part of the mobility concept, which is about sup-porting travelers in changing their mobility behavior. According to the Theory of Planned Behavior [1], attitudes partly determine behavior. This also seems to be the case for mobility-related behavior; Haunstein and Hunecke [10] found an influence of attitudes towards cars and public transport on the usage of eco-friendly transportation modes.

4.4 Life Situation

A description of the life situation (in continuous text) is also part of the persona tem-plate. The continuous text includes, among other things, information about the socio-economic status, which expresses requirements regarding the fare. Also included are daily activities such as working, hobbies, and other leisure activities, which are the reason why people need mobility services. In addition to this description of everyday life, the text can describe other important values of the persona and can be used to extend the mid-term needs, the personality, or the attitudes. Moreover, the acceptance of innovative technology can be expressed by the text.

4.5 Destinations

There are some more elements in the persona template. ‘Destinations’ not only includes regular destinations but also characteristics such as the purpose of the travel (e.g. work). Information about the distance between the residence and the destination could be added, as well. However, the actual driven kilometers depend on the route a certain mode of transportation takes. For instance, a bus mostly does not take the direct way to a destination but a pedestrian mostly can do so. The distance did not have an added value in our project, wherefore we did not include it in Fig. 2.

4.6 On the way with

The ‘on the way with’ provides information on who the persona travels with on a regular basis. Such travel companions – who could be children, friends, but also a dog – lead to requirements on a transportation mode, such as available seats and the possibility to have a conversation.

4.7 Motto and Picture

The picture, which could be a photo or a drawing, should fit to the characteristics of the persona. The picture and the motto, which is a short summary of the key characteristics of the persona, ease to distinguish personas at a glance.

4.8 Represents __% of the Citizens

The estimation ‘represents ___% of the citizens’ reflects how many citizens in the district are similar to the persona. There are many characteristics that could be used to decide whether the persona is similar to other citizens. These characteristics are segmentation criteria. The user of the template can decide which characteristic should be used as a segmentation criteria. We used a combination of the employment status, family status, and residence as our main segmentation characteristics.

5 Usage of Template

Ideally, the template should be filled with consolidated data from real traveler groups. The template suggests which data to elicit from travelers; for instance, via interviews. Then, the template can be completed on a print-out or in a digital version. Our template is currently available as a print-out and a PowerPoint template in both German and English. We recommend taking a look at an already existing persona, when completing our template in order to get an idea of how to use the scales.

We already mentioned that we used provisional personas, which were created by researchers with a background in software engineering, mobility and psychology. We used the personas in a workshop for identifying mismatches between the travelers` needs and the currently available transportation modes. The mismatches were validated afterwards. During the workshop, we derived requirements from the needs that are directly or indirectly part of the persona. For instance, Charlotte has the need to take her two children with her; the derived requirement is that the mobility service has to transport two children safely. Requirements on a mobility service (cf. Fig. 3) also emerge in combination with the situation on a certain day (e.g. feeling tired, rainy and windy), local particularities (e.g. incline), the purpose of the trip (e.g. shopping).

Fig. 3.
figure 3

Description of the requirements derivation process. Traveler’s needs are one element in this process.

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We separated these other aspects from the persona template, so that we can go through different scenarios with the same persona. This is also the reason, why we did not include the element ‘needs’ or ‘goals’ in the template, like other persona tem-plates do. In our opinion, needs such as arriving on time depend on the scenario. For a meeting, arriving precisely on time is important, but when traveling for touristic reasons, arriving a few minutes later is mostly not that critical. In the workshop, the participants did not fill in the persona template but worked with previously created personas. The participants were able to use the personas without much explanation. They mentioned that the personas supported them in considering a situation from a different point of view. In this first workshop, we found that tolerance towards different weather condition should be added to the template, which we did afterwards. In the future, we will replace the fictive content with data from potential travelers in the district and then conduct another workshop.

6 Discussion

The persona template for mobility was created in the context of a project in Germany, so the template was originally written in German. Therefore, the template might not apply well in projects taking place in a very different cultural setting. Moreover, the terms in the template might be less comprehensible in the English version. The choice of characteristics for the template is probably also influenced by our experience in mobility projects and the scope of the current project. For instance, we did not include the characteristic ‘transportation mode’, since it did not fit to our purpose for using personas. Therefore, use of the template in other mobility projects might require some elements to be modified, especially when considering travelers with special needs. For instance, the attitudes in our template might be irrelevant for other projects outside the Smart City context, while other attitudes might have to be added to the template. We consider adjustment of the template a regular step in the persona creation process. Nevertheless, the template should already provide a good basis for the creation of personas, so the number of adjustments is expected to be small.

Therefore, we plan to evaluate the completeness of our template. We consider the template complete if all the information about a traveler that is relevant for creating or enhancing smart mobility services can be filled in and extracted from the template. Aspects regarding autonomous systems and gamification might be missing in the current version of the template. It seems reasonable that travelers will differ in terms of trust towards autonomous cars, buses, and trains. Furthermore, we did not consider gamification. According to Bartel [11] and Marczewski [12], users can be categorized into four, respectively six, player types. One player type that is part of the model by Bartel as well as that by Marczewski is the ‘socializer’. According to these two authors, persons who identify with this player type are motivated by relatedness. Therefore, team competition is one way to motivate this kind of person. Hence, including player types in the template might be beneficial when motivational elements should be included in a mobility application. Adding more elements to the template might increase its completeness, but more information might also have a negative impact on usability. A trade-off needs to be achieved between completeness and the usability of the template.

We plan to evaluate the template’s completeness by filling in real data from travelers, elicited, for instance, via interviews. We would like to ask members of different projects to fill in the template. If the project member filling in the template cannot document all the information considered relevant for a persona by the project consortium with the help of the template, the template will be considered incomplete. Furthermore, the template will be considered incomplete if users of the created persona miss information. All information missing in the current version of the template should be discussed regarding its relevance for other projects. If the information is considered relevant for a high number of other projects by a group of experts, an element for filling in this information should be added to the template.

Besides that, we want to evaluate whether the template is comprehensible and can be filled in within an acceptable amount of time. Comprehension can be measured in three ways. One indicator for comprehension is whether the persona created with the template is reasonable; that is, whether the single elements of the template fit together. For instance, if the persona works as a social worker, has a high score on ‘district community’ and ‘outgoing’ but the text says ‘dislikes social events and afraid of meeting new people’, we consider the persona not reasonable. The persona might not be reasonable due to a lack of experience in creating personas or because the template is not comprehensible. Another indicator for comprehension is the number of questions asked while filling in the template. The third indicator is users’ rating of comprehension.

Moreover, it should be evaluated whether filling in the persona template can be completed within an acceptable amount of time. The absolute amount of time is not important to us, since some template users might enjoy spending time on creating the persona, which makes it hard to determine whether the time spent is too long. In-stead, we consider the time as acceptable if the template users themselves consider it that way. If the participants perceive the time as too long, it should be investigated how the template could be improved. Maybe some elements need to be reduced or the interaction with the template needs to be improved.

So far, we have not evaluated the template except for using it in two workshops with fictive data. Completing the template with fictive data is not an ideal option but served our purpose of getting into the project and identifying some mismatches be-tween needs and available transportation modes at an early stage in the project. We plan to replace the fictive data of the provisional personas with real data of travelers as soon as such data is available.

In the first step of the evaluation, we plan to address comprehension. We want to ask people with experience in the creation of personas to create one based on the German version of the template, since this version is more advanced. The participants will be free to choose a data set from one of their projects as a basis for the persona. The participants will not receive any introduction to the template. Instead, a member of the evaluation team will be present to answer questions emerging while filling in template. These questions will be noted and analyzed to check whether they indicate poor comprehension of the template. It might be possible to improve comprehension by replacing terms in the template with terms that are easier to understand and less ambiguous. Another option could be to develop some short instructions for the tem-plate.

7 Conclusion and Future Work

We developed a persona template for the creation of personas in the field of mobility. We explained our motivation for creating a new persona template. Our contribution lies in the aspects being considered in the template and not in the design of it. The template consists of several elements, which are partly derived from literature about user segmentation and templates used in practice. These elements can be grouped into these categories; basic data (such as name and age), life situation, personality, mid-term needs, destinations, travel companions, attitudes and a motto. Personas created with the template have been successfully used in two projects to date. A proper evaluation will be conducted in the future according to the presented evaluation plan. In the future, we also plan to investigate whether it is an option to let travelers fill in the template instead of asking them to answer interview questions. The expected advantages would be that less time would be needed to elicit travelers’ characteristics and that this procedure would be more enjoyable compared to interviews. The template is publicly available (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2554034). We would welcome use of the template by others and would appreciate any feedback on completeness and comprehension.