Car dashboard redesign

for Indian cab drivers

Zalak Upadhyay
Information & Interface Design
NID, R & D Campus,Bangalore

Guides:

Dr. B. Baral
NID R&D Campus, Bangalore

Mr. Prashanth Halady

Bosch Engineering, Bangalore

1
Overview
Cabs and various cab services continue to gain a
market in Indian society. These cabs and services
have various modes of operation, from organized,
highly professional, to moderately organized, as
well as individuals driving their cars on their own
and using it as a cab to earn their livelihood.
Where the organized services like Meru cabs, Easy
cabs etc. have a specific, simple yet efficient
protocol to follow, the moderatley organized
services may come with little loose ended
protocols, and the individual cabs operate on a
totally private terms and conditions.
This study involves a research, with the cab driver
as the end user of the LPV’s available in the current
market, for a project to redesign the dashboard of
existing LPV’s in the market to suit their needs.
The organized cab services serve both in the city as
well as inter city. The services usually employ LPVs
and local residents as drivers for the same.This
work studies the dashboards of cabs in existing
organized cab services in the city, in terms of
instrumentation, infotainment, design, ergonomics
and usability. The primary focus of the study would
be to look into the design of the dashboard in a
manner that it makes the cab driver’s who happen
to spend some 16-18 hours per day in their cab,
feel at home.
The objective of this study was to get insights about
Overview
how a cab driver sees and perceives the car, what he
carries with him for his comfort and how that can be
accomodated in the current design.
The study began with a quick market analysis of vehicles
that are bought for using in cab services. Taxicabs in
India are mostly Premier Padmini or Hindustan
Ambassador cars but newer ones are mostly Tata Indigo
& Mahindra Logan (especially in the big cities). New
models of taxis like the Mahindra Logan, Tata Indigo,
Tata Indica and Toyota Corolla are commonly seen in
metropolises in India.
After the market analysis, the real target audience was
to be catered, which in this case was cab drivers. The
cab services work in three ways,
They hire the LPVs in a bulk, in their preferred design
and make, fit the gadgets, recruit the drivers, train them,
and put them on road.
They open a service where drivers own their individual
vehicles, register themselves under the service
provider’s name, are provided with the gadgets, trained
and become a part of the service network.
Private owner’s of the vehicle operating as cab driver’s.
The operational level details of service models are
similar.
Step 1 A call is made to the cab service call centre,
details of pick and drop are provided, along with a
contact number.
Step 2 Request is registered in the database with the
details of customer and the transaction.
Step 3 The centre broadcasts the request, cab driver’s
bid, the earliest bidder gets the job.But, this has certain
preconditions like,
The distance between the area from where the
driver bids to the area of request.
The time passed since driver’s last approved bid
and drop.
Traffic situations.
 Overview

1
A call is made to the cab service call centre, details of
pick and drop are provided, along with a contact
number.

2
Request is registered in the database with the
details of customer and the transaction.

The centre broadcasts the

3 request, cab driver’s bid,

the earliest bidder gets the
job.

4
A message is sent to your mobile phone, confirming
the pick up, timings and giving out the cab number
with driver’s mobile number.

Fig. 1 The process of booking a cab for an organized cab service.

Step 4 Customer request is fulfilled, the vehicle is
GPS tracked, record of the request is made in the
database, on drop a bill is generated and the
customer pays.
The difference between the services can be seen in
the sophistication of the gadgets used by the
service. While, the moderately organized services
use a simple broadcasting system using GPRS,
to operate, the highly professional services like Meru
have an expensive product called MDT installed in their
vehicles.
The rules and regulations of the service, really don’t
leave much space for the customization of the
dashboard for the drivers. Where the devices provided
by the cab service takes away the majority of the
dashboard.
 Methodology

2 Methodology
Classes of data were collected and studies
Analysis conducted to discern patterns and formulate
principles that might guide future action.

Behaviors, beliefs and observations of cab driver’s

Survey - Questionnaire were identified, reported and interpreted.

A representative or selected sample of one or

Status more phenomena was examined to determine its
special characteristics.

An attempt to find or describe why things were the

Theory Construction way they were.

Fig. 2 Research methodolgy Process


Analysis
The initial stages of the study began with a statistical
analysis. The areas of study were the total vehicle
population(TVP) of India and drilling it down to the
statistics of Bangalore city in Karnataka. These
findings were further drilled down to the number of
cabs in Bangalore.
The statistics revealed a total vehicle population of
9.72 lacs (includes two wheelers, three wheelers
and four wheelrs) in Bangalore, and out of which
0.92 lacs were cabs.
This showed that 10% of all the vehicles running on
Bangalore’s roads were cabs. The statistics showed
a promising area for research.
The next step was to collect some information
from the market by collecting the data about the
cars used as cabs.
In Bangalore, the cars seen plying as cabs are
majorly Tata Indica, Toyota Qualis and
Mahindra-Renault Logan.
Large scale cab services like Meru Cabs can be seen
using Logan in majority, but the other smaller cab
services and self employed cab driver’s still prefer
Tata Indica due to it’s size and performance.
This gave a direction to the study and hence areas
where cab driver’s can be found in Bangalore were
listed down. The major areas covered were
commercial zones like M.G Road (Shopping areas),
Koramangala( Corporate zone), Airport,
Malleswaram (old city).
Methodology
Tata Indica
The Tata Indica diesel has become the broadly
used car in the private transport sector of the
country. In metropolitan cities, it has been used
largely by companies for commuting their
employees. The turbo-kit equipped version of
Indica V2, Indica V2 Turbo is the most
commonly used variant of Indica as taxi. Tata
Indica is available in two models namely Indica
V2 and Vista and has numerous variants.
Toyota Qualis
Even though Toyota Kirloskar Motors has
phased out the production of Toyota Qualis, it
is still among the commonly used taxis in the
country. Qualis is a mighty MUV with 2.4-litre
diesel engine that is naturally aspirated. It has
great fuel efficiency and has a fuel-tank capacity
of 53-litres. This is combined with latest safety
features that will keep the passengers safe in
any conditions. Toyota Qualis is found as taxis
mostly in airports and railway stations because
of its spacious interiors that will not only
occupy eight to ten passengers depending on
the variant but also has enough room for
luggage. These MUVs are also used as
corporate taxis, thanks to its huge seating
capacity.
Mahindra - Renault Logan
Logan is a luxury sedan and one among the
luxurious taxis of the country. Mahindra-Renault
Logan was launched as a joint venture by
Renault, the French automobile manufacturer,
and Mahindra & Mahindra. It was largely
criticized for its gaudy shape. The car is
affordably priced and has good fuel efficiency.
The car has very low maintenance cost and is
not a burden on the car owner. Logan is built
on Renault's space optimization design.
Available in over 13 variants, it is the diesel
version that is used as taxis.
 Methodology

Cab Drivers in Bangalore

Comparative statistics

India’s TVP 375.81 lacs

Karnataka’s TVP 25.44 lacs

Bangalore’s TVP 9.72 lacs

Bangalore’s total cab population 0.92 lacs

10% of Bangalore’s Total Vehicle Population are

cabs.
TVP - Total Vehicle Population including two wheelers and three wheelers.

Survey - Questionnaire
This was the most iterative yet insighful part of the
research. Initial focus of the study was to
understand the dashboards of cabs in existing
organized cab services in the city, in terms of
instrumentation, infotainment, design, ergonomics
and usability. The primary focus of the study was to
to look into the adapabtability of the cab driver
with the various interfaces provided in the cab
helping him with navigation, billing and other add
ons that come into picture when an LPV is
converted into an organized cab service.
Improvising or providing better methods to reduce
the learning curve of cab drivers using the
interfaces to ensure better service.
With this primary area in mind a subjective
questionnaire was formulated. The questions in the
questionnaire were as follows:
Age
How long have you been in this profession?
How many kms do you drive per day?
What is the most disturbing hour? Why?
Do you understand the controls provided to
you?
How long did it take to master the gadgets?
Is there anything else that you’d want in the
car for your driving convenience?
Does the customer distract you at times?
How?
How would you rate yourself as a driver?
How are you evaluated by the company?
Any bad accidents, where the mechanism,
interface or gadgets are to be blamed?
How do you feel about the arrangement of
controls on the dashboard?
Methodology
Would you like to displace some controls
with other more important ones?
Are there some controls that you hardly use?
Were you taught the controls or you learnt it
yourself?
Is language a problem?
Would you like to customize the vehicle?
These questions were asked to 20 cab driver’s from
various cab services ( employed, self employed). But,
the results showed that most of the question became
invalid in case the driver was self employed as that
meant no extra gadgets were placed in their vehicle,
also with other semi organized services, most of them
operated via mobile and not a GPRS device, once again
ridding the driver of any extra gadgets on the
dashboard.
Though the initial focus of the study seemed a little lost,
a new pattern emerged from these interviews and
questions and moreover from the later analysis of
pictures taken while questioning. It was seen that the
driver’s carried some personal objects with them while
on the move, and their placements in the car were
quite fascinating. Keeping this in mind a new
questionnaire was formed.
Age
How long have you been in this profession?
How many kms do you drive per day?
What all in the car belongs to you?
Where do you store your document?
Where do you keep your mobile?
Where do you keep your license?
Where do you keep the toll receipts?
How do you charge your mobile?
 Methodology
What all do you have for your
entertainment?
Analysis
What do you do while waiting for your
customer? Statistics
Market Scenario
Along with this observations were made about, Focus Area
If there, where was the music player placed?

Where was the food and water kept?

Were there any other knick knacks on the

dashboard? Survey - Questionnaire
Were their any customizations, additions or Raw Data
derived usages of the existing dashboard? Images

33%
66%
(16-18 hrs)
Status
List of common objects
Time spent in car Patterns
Time spent outside car
Status
The data collected from the survey gave out some
common objects carried by the cab drivers. On
comparing the results of the various survey’s and
studying the storage space used for them some
common patterns were spotted and duly noted.
Theory Construction
Trends
Reasoning

Theory Construction
Some of the patterns that were spotted, were quite
unique and innovative. Thus, it required a deeper
insight to figure out, why this particular trend was
seen. Like, why would they prefer to carry the 2 ltr,
Pepsi, Coke bottles? Design Opportunities
So, another round of interviews with 10 cab drivers Fig. 3 Input and output of every stage of research
took place that would throw light on these trends. process
 Insights

3 Insights
Often these drivers on an average end up driving
some 350 kms a day, which means nearly an entire
Important documents

day spent in the car.

In both cases, whether the vehicle is owned by

Mobile Phone
them or not, a certain customization was seen as an
effort to personalize the tiny space that becomes
their home.

A list of the common objects carried by the cab

driver’s is: License & ID card

Important documents
License
Mobile
Food & water
Entertainment (CDs, newspapers)
Music, CDs
Religious artefacts

While a specified space has been provided for

some, the driver’s have found their own creative

!
workaround for the others. Also, a certain amount
of change in interiors is observed to make
themselves feel at home, these can be seen in the Newspaper
forms of:
Steering wheel decorations
Car seat customization, in terms of
embellishments and adjustments using
cushions. Religious Artefacts
Idols in the centre of the dashboard
Garlands hanging from the rearview mirror

This gave an insight into the need of the driver to

store personal stuff in the limited space and have it
at arm’s length to access without affecting his
driving performance. So, this is suggesting a look Food & water
into a driver’s personal needs when he’s on the go
the whole day and how modifications in the Fig. 4 Objects carried by a cab driver.
dashboard can fit the needs.
 Insights
The locations of the above mentioned objects can
be seen in the following images.

Fig. 5 Idol placed on the centre of the dashboard Fig. 7 Religious embellishment on the steering

Fig. 6 Idol placed on the centre of the dashboard

The religious artefacts included idols placed on the

centre of the dashboard, some hangings hanging
from the rear view mirror, embellishments on the
steering wheel, stickers on the windshield etc. The
most common among these was the idol on the
dashboard.

The idols are glued on to the dashboard so that

they don’t fall down due to the motion of the car,
Fig. 8 A religious hanging and sticker spotted on the
but the glue wears off with time. This was one area
rearview mirror and windshield.
which needs to be worked on.
 Insights
The next common object was a water bottle.
Which was kept under the seat or in the cavity next
to the door, but he majority driver’s kept it under
the seat or next to it. The reason quoted for this
was, that they prefer to carry a 2 ltr bottle, the
one’s you get the cold drinks like, Coca Cola and
Sprite in. The bottles come cheap, and can store
enough water for a to and fro trip, after which they
can be refilled at office again.

But, the location of these bottles is unsuitable for a

hot summer day in Indian climate, as the water
tends to heat up, due to it’s close proximity to the
engine. Fig. 11 Bottle kept in the in door cavity

Fig. 9 Bottle placed next to the driver’s seat

Fig. 12 Bottle kept in the in door cavity
Some drivers were seen using the cavity provided in the
door, but most of them preferred not to use them for
their water, because the cavities are very narrow and
can only fit in very slim bottles or maximum they can
expand to fit the one litre mineral water bottles, that
too of some specific brands. In this case, most of these
in door storage, went unused or was used to store,
cleaning cloth and old newpapers.

Fig. 10 Bottle wrapped in a newspaper placed

next to the driver’s seat
As it can be seen in the above picture that a
newspaper is being used to cover the bottle, to
maintain the temperature for whatever short
period it can sustain. The driver’s often prefer to fill
water from coolers, so that they can get chilled
water which they try to preserve by wrapping in
newspaper or a piece of cloth.

Fig. 13 Mobile kept in space provided next to
gear box
Fig. 14 Coins kept in space provided next to
gear box
Fig. 15 Innovative usage of an ashtray
Another important object they preferred to carry
was a mobile phone, which was seldom seen
outside the pocket. On questioning it was found
out that they consider mobile to be a really valuable
device and don’t feel very safe keeping it out in
open, when it’s a non air conditioned car. In air
conditioned cars , some were seen using the cavity,
provided next to the gear box.
Insights
Fig. 16 Music player remote and other stationery
Fig. 17 Mobile charger
This position facilitated them to keep the mobile
standing with the screen facing them, while driving, so
that if it rings, they can see who’s calling while driving
and decide if they want to pick the call or not. This, to
us felt a hindrance to driving, because to look down, on
has to take one’s eye off the road. But, the driver’s
seemed to say it wasn’t so.
Also, with mobiles, comes the issue of charging them,
as the drivers often stay out for 18-20 hours a day.
While some had mobile chargers in their car, other’s
utilized the plugs available in security offices of the
waiting / parking of their clients.
Along with mobiles, these cavities were also seen to be
used for storing other random stuff like pen, coins, nail
cutter, some old seemingly unimportant papers, remote
controls of the music player, pan masala, candies etc.
 Insights

The common trend seen with the important

documents was to put them in the glove box, or in
a pouch which was kept under the driver’s seat.
While some documents which need to be flashed
or kept displayed all the time were worn as tags or
hung from the rear view mirror as can be seen i the
picture.

Fig. 20 Documents cluttered on the dashboard

Most of them mentioned keeping their license in their

shirt pocket or in their wallets which were kept in the
back pocket of the trousers.

Some were using the visor to store documents that can

be at arm’s stretch while driving, if stopped and asked
for.

Other than this, an open storage space provided under

the steering was also seen to be utilised as a space to
store documents and alternated by being used for
storing entertainment, music, CDs in case there was a
space to fit the player in mid panel. Otherwise, this
particular slot under the steering was also seen being
used as a slot to fix music players.

While, most of the driver’s were seen to be taking

immense care of the documents and preferring to store
Fig. 18 Identity card them in a closed compartment like the glove box, some
were spotted leaving the billing book and bills and other
transaction related documents out in open.

Also, a trend was seen while storing toll receipts. As the

toll receipts issued at one toll need to be refurbished
once one exits the toll highway, they need to be kept
somewhere quickly in reach. Some were found storing
them in their shirt pocket, some put it in the visor,
while some put it in the ashtray provided in the
dashboard.

Fig. 19 Documents stored on visor

 Insights
Last but not the least is the entertainment section.
The drivers were commonly seen carrying
newspaper and music for their entertainment
whilst waiting for the customer outside the office
or on the street.

The newspapers were found out on the dashboard,

or tucked inside the side pocket of the passenger
seat, or at times next to the gearbox in the narrow
passage that connects driver’s seat to the
passenger’s seat.

Whereas, music related objects like cassettes, CDs,

USB sticks were spotted in cavity provide on the Fig. 23 Space used to store CDs
door, or under the steering storage. Some of the
driver’s mentioned that they prefer to listen to the
radio when they are inside the city and hence don’t
feel the need to carry their own music with them.
it’s only when they need to travel long distance that
they carry their CD’s in a pouch which is kept on
the dashboard or in the back pocket of the seat.

Also, they mentioned that music is moreover only

played when they are alone as some customer’s

Fig. 24 Newspaper tucked next to the seat

Fig. 21 Cassettes kept in in-door storage

Fig. 25 Newspaper tucked next to the seat

have objection against music, due to safety reasons, or
maybe they want to relax or due to a mismatch of taste
Fig. 22 Newspaper on the dashboard in music.
 Suggestions

Concepts

4 Suggestions
The user research gave out, quite a lot of insights
and a scope for design interventions or rather
Digital

Fig. 26 Types of concepts

Digital
Structural

Structural

design opportunities. Documents

The main problem areas identified were: Food & Water

Maintaining Documents
Mobile Phone
Car related
Identity card Religious Artefacts
License
Toll receipts
Fig. 27 Problem - Concept Type Mapping
Storing Food and Water

Mobile Phones Document Checklist

Placement
Charging RC Book

Religious artefacts Insurance Policy

While a digital solution is possible for a few, it’s not
Road Tax & Octroi
possible for all of the above problems. There is
definitely a way out to all the above problems with
physical change in the structure, shape and form of PUC
the dashboard. In simple words, a redesign of the
dashboard to fit our traget segment of cab drivers. License
The following are the concepts suggested for the
Identity Card
above mentioned problem areas.

With documents both digital and structural Toll receipts

suggestions are provided. The list of documents
that are carried in a car on regular basis by a cab Fig. 27 List of documents carried by a cab driver
driver can be seen in Fig. 28.
 Suggestions

Usually people are seen carrying photocopies or

attested photocopies of car related documents as
they prefer to keep the original copies safe in their
house.

Often these documents go through wear and tear My Docs My Music Settings
due to travelling conditions, changing hands.
There’s a danger of forgetting some documents or
losing them.

After a period of time the documents start getting

tattered and at times reach such an inrecognizable Fig. 29 Facility to store documents on the device
state that they hardly serve their purpose.

An alternate solution to this can be storing the

documents in a digital format in the provided
infortainment device. The digital format could be:

Scanned images of the original document

Special digital versions of the documents

with digital watermarks to preserve
authenticity Fig. 30 Tap gesture to access the documents
k
ar

My Documents
m
d

er
ste

RC Book
at
te
At

License
W

Identity Card
Road tax
Fig. 28 Ways of digitizing the Document Insurance Policy

But, certain states are very strict about original

documentation. In such cases, a digital copy until
unless a digital watermarked one, which to a Fig. 31 List of documents
certain extent can prove it’s authenticity, may not
hold valid. In such situations, it’s better to have
hard copies of the documents, for this a suitable
storage in the dashboard is advisable. Govt. Of India

The drive’s prefer to store their documents in

glove box, provided next to the passenger seat.
But, this is more out of having no other option. The
common problems with the glove boxes are:

Unsuitable form (Fig. 33)

Size Fig. 32 Document Preview
 Suggestions

Fig. 33 The Glove box of Indica, a very malformed form.

Fig. 34 Suggested storage space, behind the steering wheel.

 Suggestions

As can be seen in Fig. 33 the shape of the glove box

from inside is non uniform. Most of the documents,
especially photocopied ones are of standard size
A4. There is no way those documents can be kept
safe in the glove box without folding. This is due to
both the ofrm and the size of the glove box.

Also, the placement of the glove box is such that it

makes it difficult for the driver to access while
seated on the driver’s seat.

A suggestion to solve this issue is to have

horizontally opening A4 sized storage space as
shown in Fig. 34 that is placed behind the A tiny pouch, or pocket to store toll receipts
horizontal space on the dashboard,behind the
steering wheel. Fig. 35 Placement of storage for toll receipts.

This solves the issues by providing a suitable structural changes.

rectangular form, of preferred size and ease of
access. The water needs to be kept at a quick access distance
and some facilitation needs to be done to maintain the
Similarly for toll receipts, which are usually 1/4th temperature. Also, extra care needs to be taken to size
A4 in size, the crucial point is quick access. For this the storage such that the preferred 2 Ltr. bottles can be
a tiny drawer can be kept at quick access distance stored.
from the driver’s seat, so that they don’t go flying
when windows are opened. Also, a cavity can be The suggestion is to have a storage space next to the
provided inside the door to store the same. steering wheel as shown in Fig. 37. This cavity can be
coated with a coolant layer underneath to maintain the
Moving on to food and water. As seen in the temperature.
insights section drivers store their bottle next to
the seat, for quick access to water while driving.
Also, it’s seen that they make efforts to keep water
temperture down as it gets heted up due to close
proximity to the engine.

And for food it was seen that all of them, who carry
a lunch box from home, before they start for the Coolant layer
day prefer to keep it in the boot of the car. The
reason quoted for not keeping it with them next to
the seat, like water, is very cultural based. Indians
consider wearing shoes or keeping food near one’s
feet inauspicious.
Fig. 36 Suggested storage for water bottle
But, the road conditions in India and the weather
conditions often create problems, as the food spills
due to constant jerks, or gets spoilt due to constant
exposure to heat.

These issues can again only be resolved by


Fig. 37 Suggested location for storage of water bottle
Similarly, for mobile phones and mobile chargers,
a apace needs to be allocated to keep the mobile
upright in direct vision of the driver. Also, the
vehicles working as cabs should have mobile
chargers.
Another common pattern spotted with cab
drivers was the religious artefacts, or the idols
placed in the centre of the dashboard, and as
mentioned earlier these idols come with a glue
base, which can be stuck on the dashboard so that
the motion of the vehicle does not make it fall.
Few problems faced with the same are:
The exposure to heat and weather
condition causes the glue to wear off over
a period of time.
The glue quality varies from manufacturer
to manufacturer and affects or leaves
marks on the dashboard at times.
Suggestions
Is not customizable to people’s different
religious beliefs.
Structural solutions to the same could be to find
alternative ways to keep the idol stuck to the
dashboard. Some of the suggested solutions would be:
Using screw system, with on the base of the
idol and a non sharp edged screw in the centre of the
dashboard. One just has to screw/unscrew the idol to
the dashboard, and same can be applied to any other
accessory apart for idols.
Using velcro base idols and accessories. And a
corresponding patch can be provided in the centre of
the dashboard.
Digital solutions of the same can be to have a digitised
image of respected God and Goddesses displayed as a
static wallpaper on the infotainment device whenever
the device is in a passive or sleep mode(not in use).
 Suggestions
The device can come with a preselected set of
deities which can be set as wallpaper as need be.
Also, images of deities can be uploaded to the
system by the driver if his respective
God/Goddess is not pre loaded into the system.

This can act as a motivation to drivers to use the

infotainment devices and it’s full fetaures which
they seemed quite reluctant to use as now a
religious factor comes into play which they really
have faith in.
Fig. 41 Wallpaper

With this it can be concluded that with some digital and

strucutural changes a cab drivers life can be made

!
comfortable to a greater extent. Also, the journey of
approximately 350 kms per day, with some 16-18 hours
spent in the car, can have a more accessible and homely
My Docs My Music My Idol feeling attached to it.

Fig. 38 Facility to select images of God as

!
wallpaper

Fig. 39 Tap gesture to access the Images

My Idols

Ganesh
Hanuman
Laxmi
Krishna
Shiva

Fig. 40 List of Gods / Goddesses

 References

5 References
For all India Statistics

http://www.carazoo.com/article/1007200901/Top-5-Taxis-on-the-Indian-Roads

www.indiastat.com

www.outlookindia.com

www.cybersteering.com

For documentation

http://www.languages.ait.ac.th/el21meth.htm