The role of industrial design in passenger boat building: Concept design of a ferry for marine urban transportation in Izmir Bay as a case

Abstract

The city of İzmir is in a process of rapid growth and there is a great pressure of demand on the urban transportation. The shortage of mass transportation availabilities, together with the recent increases in the economic power of an average customer, has promoted private car ownership and this has resulted in the congestion of intercity traffic; increasing the burden on the existing road system. Since 1980.s, efforts to develop of sea urban transportation have been in the agenda of the city. Privatization of public sea transport network in the Bay, management of this network by the Municipality, hiring a private fleet for transportation by the municipality are some examples of the efforts mentioned. The main problem which the transportation managers meet is old and costly managing sea transportation fleet. To overcome of this problem, there is an intention for renewing the fleet by designing a ferry boat that meets the needs of zmir.s sea transportation system. In this study, a ferry which can navigate in zmir Bay environmental conditions and carry enough passengers has been designed by using industrial design criteria. The main steps of the concept design of the ferry have been listed below: (1) Examples from all over the World have been investigated. (2) Inquires carried on in 1996 and 2004 periods on the passengers demands have been considered to form design criteria. (3) Observations during the trips of current transportation system have been done. (4) Interviews with some experts from the transportation sector have been had. At the last section of the study, concept design of the ferry has been detailed. Main advantages of this design have been concluded as: (1) Safe (2) Cost effective (in building and in managing) (3) Comfortable (4) Light and green (less fuel consuming) (5) Fast (during embarkation and debarkation, during the trip) (6) Designed for disabled passenger.