solve this "lai bin woo kwui" problem

"lai bin woo kwui": The English translation of the Hokkien dialect, literally, "There is a ghost inside!"

Are you a frequent commuter of bus? If you are, you may likely encounter this problem: the commuters of a packed or half-packed bus are reluctant to move to the rear of the bus? How would you solve the problem?

I gave this problem to my students in the problem solving class I teach.

Some background: The Land Transport Authority (LTA) of Singapore rolls out a set of four stickers on buses (Figure 1) to remind the commuters to give a little thought to those who wish to board a crowded bus - by moving a "teensie weensie bit more" to make "the trip rocks" for everyone.

The new initiative is commendable and the creative problem solving applaudable, for a problem that seems to be difficult to solve.

FIGURE 1: The four stickers created for the Land Transport Authority of Singapore to remind commuters to move to the rear of the bus. They will be pasted on the glass windows from front to the back of bus in the order from left to right.

Coming back to teaching and learning problem solving: My personal take is that problem solving is a skill tough to master. It is also not easy to teach the subject to students who are new to complex problem solving situation such as the everyday problem as mentioned earlier.

And very often, some of the critical problem solving skills are not given due consideration in the curriculum design and students are not given sufficient time to solve complex everyday problems to acquire these skills for fear that it may confuse the students and complicate the effectiveness of teaching and learning. These skills include observation, recognition, interview, research, inquisition amongst others.

I have taken account of them in the teaching and learning plan for this problem solving class.

However, I have simplified the problem solving process to help my students (Figure 2):

1. Embrace: Recognise & Accept the Problem
2. Identify: Identify the Real Problem to Solve
3. Analyse: Define the Problem
4. Design: Generate Ideas
5. Evaluate: Choose the Solutions
6. Execute: Implement the Solutions
7. Reflect: Reflect & Learn

FIGURE 2: The seven problem solving steps.

Problem recognition is the first step. If a person is unable to recognise a problem, the problem will never be on the table for discussion. If the person does not want to embrace the problem, confront it, and have the courage to seek the stakeholders' attention, the problem will remain hidden. I have hence explicitly made the problem recognition as the very first step in the problem solving process.

Why is the bus commuter problem difficult to solve? If we have done our root cause analysis using a tool such as the Fishbone Diagram, we will learn that one of the major causes of the bus commuter problem could be due to the inconsideration or self-centredness of the bus commuters probably worried about the hassle of alighting the bus by having the need to squeeze their way out to the exit door. This is a behavioural problem.

LTA understood the root cause of the problem and created the four stickers to remind the commuters to move to the rear of the bus. Good may be, but will it solve the problem?

Stickers are silence. Bus commuters are too busy to fight their way into a crowded bus. You know my answer.

Kudos to LTA, it seems to know more need to be done. As such, it has partnered with the bus operators to increase the frequency of buses as part of the solution package. I have also personally encountered bus drivers, who vary in their command of language and state of mind after a long tiring drive, ask the front passengers to move in from the driver seat.

Problem solving is not tough if you know how. Even a beginner can solve a problem "skillfully" if he carries out ample researches on how similar problems have been solved (such as that in Figure 3), appreciates the possible root cause of the problem, and modifies the solutions if they are effective to meet the present problem situation. In this case, we do not have to re-invent the wheel. This creative technique is called associative technique.

Another creative technique is the analytic technique where we break down the problem into attributes or component parts, and then working with the individual attributes to make novel combinations, rather than the problem as a whole.

In a nutshell, problem solving encompasses problem analysis and solution finding. Research enables the problem solver to gain an insight into the problem situation and the solution to which it has attempted in the past. To be an effective problem solver, however, we need the ability to connect the unconnected.


FIGURE 3:  A graciousness campaign from LTA.

I chance upon this safety video clip (Figure 4) while preparing for the problem solving class. Are there any similarities between the two videos (Figure 3 & 4)?

I would say that both of them cleverly make use of music and visual to attract and captivate the attention of the viewers, which is a very powerful technique to draw viewers to the message you intend to pass on. This is an example of seeing the seemingly unconnected be connected.


FIGURE 4:  A safety campaign created for Metro Trains Melbourne, Australia.
 
Will this solution work and solve the bus commuter problem? Probably not as the viewers who watch the video clips from the Internet at their convenience would have already forgotten the message when they board the bus.

So, how does this have to do with connecting the unconnected?

Through research, I came across this newspaper article suggesting using taped message to move the passengers to the back. I also came across this Green Man + (Figure 5), which is an initiative by the LTA to address the needs of elderly pedestrians and pedestrians with disabilities who may require more time to cross the road.


FIGURE 5:  Green Man+, another LTA initiative to help the elderly and pedastrians with disabilities to cross a busy road.

When I ponder and wonder, thinking of the four stickers, the bus driver's instruction to move the front commuters to the back of the bus, the interesting digital/animated media and the Green Man+, I can now visualise the solution for the bus commuter problem:

• Whenever a crowded front-packed bus stops at the bus stop (because the commuters at the front of bus do not want to move in after others have alighted the bus), the bus driver will press a button to activate a fun and entertaining digital/animated media to play the song, music and visual with lyrics asking the front commuters to move to the back of bus.
• A couple of LCD display panel will be strategically placed at the side of the bus, probably at the front, middle and back. The song, music and visual will be synchronised in sequence. i.e. played once after another, to make things interesting and captivating.
• To alleviate the fear of moving too deep into the bus and unable to alight in time, "panic" buttons are strategically located at the rear for the commuters to press to indicate to the bus driver that they need more time to move out and down the bus. 

I hope you can see how I connect some of these unconnected elements into a "new" solution".

To connect the unconnected, we must read widely or have a wide exposure, and then we must be able to see beyond the surface of the knowledge we have accumulated and recognise the links.

I also hope that you could see how I use the concept in Figure 6 to solve the problem from the human-centred perspective.

FIGURE 6: Human-centred problem solving. Technology is introduced appropriately to enhance the effectiveness.

Can this solution I envision solve the "lai bin woo kwui" problem?  It may be effective. It may be operational. However, it may not be cost-effective. That is to say, it may not be economical feasible.

I guess installing LCD in all the bus fleet is by no mean a simple investment. But again, I remember many years back, dreaming on boarding an air-con bus was really a dream. However, it takes that many years for the bus operators to understand of such human needs in a hot and humid country.

Some may say that perhaps it is all about timing and opportunity. But I will tend to say that it is all about the value, philosophy or design principles that one must hold in the solution finding stage to help us set the direction where our solutions will be heading.

Do we want to be a follower or innovator? That depends on whether we want to be a creative problem solver. Having clear value, philosophy or design principles will point us to the direction.