ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the case study which uses service ideas to support Q-free, a Norwegian company working in the intelligent transport system sector, to imagine business opportunities for the Italian market. The case study presents a service design project aiming to widen up the scope and business of a technology-driven company, exploring through a user-centred approach the possible service spin-offs of a complex technological system. A service design research team of Polidesign, Consortium of Politecnico di Milano, was requested to develop sustainable service scenarios for the introduction of the Q-free electronic toll collection technology in the Italian mobility market. In the last decades people mobility has increased and become less standardised; traditional collective transportation services are unable to answer to these new patterns, while individual car-based mobility is no longer sustainable. The research group was established at the onset with the aim of being multidisciplinary: strategic designers, service designers, mobility and managerial engineers.
