Four week project, 1st year, 2004
Choose a community on one or more of the following prinicples: geographical, social, professional, intellectual, spiritual.
Things to consider and research:
> The community's purpose
What does it exist to do? Whose needs are served? What services does it provide for its members?
> The community's infrastructure
What is its hierarchy? How is it organised, structured, led? How is it funded?
> The community's values
What are these values, ethics, rules, etiquette, codes of behaviour? How are those values honoured, observed, enforced? How will your solution embody your community's values?
Our group, Andreas Berlinger, Angus Chan and Milan Prucha, aims to utilise the current obsession with partner horoscopes, which is indeed indicated by the vast number of websites luring visitors with free partner matching horoscopes. Apparently there is a correlation between the star sign sThere are many myths and clichés revolving around the trucker community. Truckers are often seen as cowboys who exchanged their horses for big motorized monsters. Their sheer appearance on the highways characterized by strength, power, weight, size etc. evokes a certain amount of respect in other road users. The image of unpredictable and careless outlaws on wheels appears on the windscreen of ordinary car drivers. "Is he gonna stay on his lane?" Generally truckers have a bad reputation but there is also a notion of romanticism connected with the profession: the lonely but independent trucker driving towards sunset on Route 66. The daily routine of truckers however is dominated by stress and boredom. There are the dispatchers on the one side who confront the truckers with extremely tight schedules putting them in conflict with the highway police on the other side. Weather conditions and congested traffic increases the pressure of getting to point B in time even more. Additionally the public is worried about the environmental impacts their lorries obviously have; "... and they are annoying obstacles on my autobahn anyway!" The fact that our whole consumer society is dependent on smooth freight traffic isn't really reflected in public awareness.
Although the trucker community itself is very strong there is a certain degree of isolation towards the rest of society, especially referring to long-distance traffic. Truckers communicate with each other over CB-radio in a specifically 'coded' language following a certain etiquette common people probably wouldn't understand at all. They only meet each other in person when they are taking a brake of what their profession actually defines, namely steering a vehicle weighing several tons. And this happens mostly at some shabby truck stop in the middle of nowhere or at a remote rest area because of national import restrictions or regional night driving regulations.
The technological environment of the proposed project is an integrated black box which the FTA (the Freight Transport Association, representing transport interests of companies moving goods by road, rail, sea and air) plans to install in all trucks in the future. The intention of installing this integrated system is to primarily serve the trucking business from the companies' point of view (digital tachograph; lorry road user charging / congestion charging / toll collection; on-board management systems covering driver performance, vehicle diagnostics and vehicle security; fleet management information; network performance information). The drivers' individual needs are addressed only indirectly or not at all.
Having identified a certain degree of social isolation as the main problem truckers are facing within their working environment, the goal is to come up with a concept for a technology or an application which tolerates, allows or even stimulates social interaction while being 'on the road'. Since the trucking community developed almost a culture in subverting technology, machinery and also imposed regulations to fit its needs and interests, the proposed solution should also respect and maybe promote these established values, codes and etiquettes. Therefore the application uses the black box system as carrier but at the same time establishes a separate media channel only known and addressed to truckers and their interests/needs (specifically promoting social interaction within the truckers community but also with the adjacent environment).
