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05/30/2007ReEngineering Sometimes Can Mean reThinking What We Have!
The sight impaired find it difficult to connect to the public service systems that all of us take for granted. A simple notion such as knowing exactly what route serves a particular intersection they find themselves at, or when the bus will arrive at a particular location, is quite a challenge. This challenge was made clear by the participants in the W2i Chicago Convention special dialog on Assistive Technologies which included leaders from Mayor Daley’s office for People with Disabilities and various groups from the region. The high cost of standalone assistive solutions was decried, while the continued lack of coherent procurement solutions that would track advances and requirements for the disabled was singled out as a special problem. I attended this session, and began to think about the potential of reengineering current solutions so that the visually impaired could enjoy the same or even more information that those with sight, but at an affordable, realistic price. I heard of prohibitively expensive solutions which would involve bus stops with Intelligent Transportation System solutions for next bus arrivals that would announce them using speakers on command. And I heard the frustration that came from those who spoke for people with various disabilities as they recounted the scarcity of budget dollars for such special solutions. And my mind wondered: how could a re-engineering approach help? Instead of a single, standalone and expensive “custom made” solution to the problem of bus arrivals, suppose we put together three innovative, commercially available products with price points driven by the general consumer market (i.e. affordable!): GPS tracking of municipal buses, 3-D mapping and wireless broadband networks to connect the consumer with the solution infrastructure. Each of these exists today! The GPS solution for bus arrival announcement is promoted in several major cities including my own of Washington DC (see http://content.wmata.com/board_gm/board_docs/030807_NextBuspresentation.pdf for a copy of the NextBus presentation in WMATA announcing the launch of the program). The 3-D mapping has arrived with a bang, as Google is currently announcing a neat solution with 3-D maps called StreetView. Use this link to position yourself in front of a busy San Francisco intersection and walk about in 3-D if you haven’t seen the demos yet: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=san+francisco&ie=UTF8&om=1&layer=c&cbll=37.794894,-122.426608&cbp=1,0,0.58114224536324,0&ll=37.795746,-122.434988&spn=0.01682,0.039911&z=15 This feature of GoogleEarth allows street level 3-D walk abouts, and it is widely rumored that software that can take digital camera inputs and match it to such 3-D map views is on its way. Bingo! A blind person can simply swing a camera around and know exactly where they are if they connect to such a 3-D map. And the final connective key to the puzzle is a Broadband Wireless network, deployed city wide and available to all residents and municipal service users who need connectivity to such pioneering solutions. Many of the excellent technology companies providing WiFi and WiMax solutions today are quite capable of providing such connectivity at extremely attractive price points. When these three technologies come together, they form a whole which is much more potent than its parts. What a future that defines, and what a liberating force for those who are physically stopped from experiencing what we routinely experience without a second thought. Of course the whole point of this mental exercise is to sketch out the power of ReEngineering- the ability to rethink a classic action in new ways, using the power of technology and to end up with a more powerful ability. Will such a solution come about in the particular space of bus arrivals? I think that it has a better chance of doing so than expensive, special solutions for the disabled, since it uses the consumer base of the entire population to drive costs down, yet puts together the pieces in a way that benefits the disabled. What do you think? Will it work? Can you share with all of us similar reengineering approaches that have worked for you? Let’s hear from you, now!
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