Q&A: How Designit helped solve Oslo’s tram issue

While an international strategic design firm founded in Denmark might appear the last  relevant factor in procuring transport infrastructure, the connection between Designit and public transport operator Sporveien in Oslo solved an issue with 87 new trams.

The work saw the company secure an award at the Design and Architecture Norway (DOGA) Innovation Awards.

As a lead designer at Design Services, Siri's role is dynamic and diverse, with each day presenting new challenges and opportunities. Her responsibilities often include organising workshops, facilitating collaboration, and guiding clients in identifying and solving problems.

With a background in industrial design stemmed from a passion for creativity and a desire to understand how design impacts people's interactions.

In this Q&A, we spoke with Siri to determine how design principles were integrated into the procurement process, emphasising stakeholder involvement, holistic thinking, prototyping, and collaboration.

Q. For those unfamiliar with Designit, how would you describe its main activities?

Designit is an experienced innovation company with design at its core. Fundamentally, Designit’s goal is to create meaningful user experiences across physical, digital and service touchpoints. It occupies the niche at the cross-section of strategy, design, marketing, and technology, for clients in the public and private sectors.

A core focus for us is ESG - our on-going mission is not only to be a great place to work for our employees and to be a great partner for our clients, but to ensure the solutions we create consider every key stakeholder.

To help us achieve this, Designit’s work is informed by the ‘Do No Harm’ framework, a criteria designed to mitigate the potentially harmful impact of poor design work on third parties. It was inspired by medicine’s Hippocratic Oath, and underpins everything we do.

Q. How did you end up working in Design Services?

I’ve always been creative; I love working with my hands and playing with ideas. I suppose there’s a familial influence too - I come from a family of architects, but I never felt quite the same pull in that direction. Growing up, it seemed that architecture was far too broad and slow-moving.

The practical aspects of industrial design really appealed to me - I had a more intuitive understanding of how this type of design would affect people. There’s particular excitement for me in visualising how people will interact with something I’m working on.

Having said that, the Oslo municipal tram project wasn’t the kind of fast-paced industrial design that normally appeals to me - it was something we worked on for seven years. It was intellectually challenging and an engaging project to be part of because our aim was to completely redesign a very human, everyday experience.

The product itself - the tram system - is incredibly complex, presenting challenges to physical space and human interaction. It was exciting, but the complexity meant no detail could be overlooked when it came to the redesign: the buttons, seats and handrails are all things that people touch, so the way travellers interact with and experience these things was a vital part of our thinking. The tram network is also a workplace, so we brought the drivers on board, specifically to develop the driver’s cabin.

Q. Could you tell us more about the recent award winning project with Oslo municipality’s tram service?

The brief, in a nutshell, was to revolutionise the Oslo municipal tram system - it was no longer fit for purpose and did not include all its potential users.

Sporveien, the operator, faced the challenge (from a procurement perspective) of acquiring 87 new trams, to double travel capacity from 50 million to 100 million travellers per year.

The scale of this challenge presented a chance to reassess the trams design. . Ruter,Oslo’s transport authority, saw the opportunity to involve employees in the development of their workplace, and improve trams to accommodate the diverse needs of Oslo's population.

It  was the starting point for Designit’s involvement - we were brought in to ensure the new trams were built with everyone in mind.

Throughout the procurement, design and development of the new trams, we conducted interviews and surveys with travellers with different needs and varied levels of mobility. Rigorous testing, observation and refinement were key. We worked closely with drivers and other employees to effectively establish the pain points they encountered during their work days, and assess how  the trams’ design might be improved to alleviate them.

We were always keen on having vast user involvement. We felt this would be the best way of not only bringing to light the challenges faced by users of the tram system, but the ways in which potential solutions would impact all stakeholders concerned. It’s always been our belief - but it’s especially true of this project - that inclusive design is not a ‘nice to have’, but a necessity.

One of the ways we went about gauging how our proposed changes might look and feel involved building life-size cardboard models and running three full-scale tests of a 1:1 mockup, adapting the design subtly after each test. The fact that we worked this way throughout allowed Sporveien and Ruter to negotiate with the vendor, CAF, to modify their standard Urbos 100 light rail vehicle platform height accordingly.

The award-winning result of our combined efforts is the SL18. This tram accommodates everyone and delivers on the goals of universal design, and efficiency, providing an attractive workplace, and positively contributing to the urban environment and mobility.

I’m incredibly proud to have been involved - and as a resident, it’s an especially heart-warming feeling whenever I step onto an SL18 in Oslo rush hour.

Q. How do design principles fit into the procurement process?

Design has a great deal to offer the procurement process - and really, it should always be an integral component. Early on, Reuters had an understanding that our involvement in this project would be key in engaging with stakeholders in a meaningful way.

Design is a great tool for making informed choices. Its principles take into account people’s values and their needs, helping to make the procurement process more mindful of factors beyond traditional considerations such as financial constraints, energy efficiency, technology or construction. Really, it’s about making it easier to challenge standard practice,providingthe licence to innovate and making sure everyone is included at the same time.

As a general rule, there are fundamental principles they refer to in our design projects - and all helped guide the procurement process for this project.

First, prioritising stakeholder involvement. Both employees and the public - the people who would be using the trams. Second, we have to think holistically and understand the points of connection between different problems, and how proposed solutions might interconnect. Prototyping - testing as we go along - is another fundamental principle in how we approach a design-related problem, a method that is just as transferable to procurement.

Collaboration was  of vital importance: from Ruter, Sporveien, the suppliers and Designit. But it wasn’t just these groups - we did our utmost to accommodate the interests of organisations representing people with special needs, and the unions representing employees like the drivers, cleaners, maintenance staff and ticket personnel.

Design and its guiding principles can lend themselves to the world of procurement in being able to visualise. We had an inspiring design guide from the outset of this project, which helped all involved understand our aim. It meant we could align internally on our priorities, and helped inform choices like which supplier to select. It was also a useful reference point later down the line for us to measure details of the design phase against - to help us keep our original goals in mind.

Q. What are your goals, personal and/or professional, for the next 12 months?

I hope to continue working on projects that address challenges around inclusivity: making our public services, spaces and systems available and accessible and enjoyable. It’s a big challenge, but I am also very keen to explore ways of making both products and the economy more circular, analysing material usage and assessing the recyclability of our physical surroundings.

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