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GVK’s recently built Terminal 2 (T2) in Mumbai has redefined the image of international airports and air travel experience in India by combining design, architecture, infrastructure and operational efficiency with rich Indian heritage and culture. Tata Elxsi, one of the leading design companies in India, associated with GVK to enhance the overall passenger experience across various consumer touch points at T2. “The aim was to enhance operational efficiencies at the same time meet the emotional needs of the passengers throughout their stay and journey at the airport,” states Satish Patil, chief designer, user experience, Tata Elxsi. The design team of the company worked on a range of touch points such as entertainment zones, customer service zones, general and lifestyle seating areas from security to boarding gates. Other elements included designing pay/help phones, charging stations, ATM/vending machine housing, internet workstations/kiosks, mobile charging stations amongst others.
Challenges faced
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Satish Patil
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However, designing these touch points involved numerous challenges. The primary challenges faced by the company were to ensure that the experiences designed fit the overall architectural environment in terms of its aesthetic sensitivities, complex passenger movements, patterns to define the passenger flow and locations for the touch points functionally. The company also had to ensure that the customer experience was comfortable as well as that the proposed solutions could be engineered effectively. “Our first challenge was to design the visual language for all the elements while keeping in mind the overall theme of the terminal design. Through a comprehensive creative process we defined and shortlisted few key elements of the design such as a typical motif, proportions, overall design theme and materials,” states Patil adding, “Once the core product and visual design theme were in place, the next challenge for the design team was to interpret it appropriately to all the touch points ranging from customer service desks to kiosks.”
Detail design of these touch points involved defining overall ergonomic parameters, smooth functioning of elements and products, interesting spatial layout and planning, taking care of passenger needs like storage, accessibility, to name a few. “Functionally also, we had to solve many challenges across the design cycle such as comfortable access, maximum visibility, finding right material specifications, studying the overall architectural plans, defining the appropriate locations and manufacturing processes to ensure effective assemblies. The designs had to also retain the aesthetic qualities, as well as cater to the performance parameters such as reliability, overall life span, servicing requirements, etc,” mentions Patil. Lastly, the team had to define the zoning of the layouts for spaces like retail and leisure based on typical passenger activities and needs as they traverse from check – in points to their respective boarding gates. “It involved defining plans for retail spaces, seating systems and defining styles and layouts of various furniture elements which will naturally map to the passenger needs,” he adds.
Enhancing experience
Design and technology play a crucial role in defining and realising the solutions which provide holistic customer experiences. For instance, while designing effective consumer experiences there is a need to first understand the consumer’s psychology, spaces and architecture, ergonomics and manufacturing. “Most of the time passengers spend about 45 minutes to two hours in the terminal building before boarding their flights. How passengers spend their time is largely based on the nature of travel (domestic/international) and their cultural backgrounds. It is thus crucial to gain consumer insights to understand the requirements and thereby define passenger experience, as well as generate the required revenues to maintain and grow the airport infrastructure. Thus a detailed research and analysis of typical passenger activities through the terminal helps establish the zones for identified touch points,” explains Patil. While designing the experiential services for T2, the layouts and details were designed considering parameters like customer behavior and needs, anthropometric data, space available, planning of utilities like power and network connections, etc. “Considering the extended life span and use-case scenarios, high quality appropriate material selections were done to meet defined performance criteria, and lastly latest manufacturing processes were used to build these products,” he states.
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Drawing inspiration
Combining design with technology to reiterate the brand image was an important factor of the project. Hence, while designing the experiential services they drew inspiration from the MIAL brand identity – the peacock feather. “The peacock feather is the most significant part of the visual DNA which was incorporated in many forms and ways across the environment, right from the sculptures to the pillars. Our design team took this theme to the next level without overplaying it. It is used across many consumer touch points such as pay/help phones, charging stations, TV or internet workstations,” states Patil. The team also ensured that the experiences designed fit the environment and blends with the architecture of T2. Similarly they had also explored advanced materials required to make the customer service desks to achieve a luxurious and unified look and feel even on complex surfaces. “We ensured that all the consumer touch points developed blend with the MIAL brand identity and was in line with the architectural beauty and opulence of the T2,” he adds.
In a mammoth project like T2, future proofing of design and techological elements was also of crucial importance for the team. “While designing the several consumer touch points, we ensured that the solutions developed can address the future needs of passengers. We designed robust and sleek designs which can accommodate future technology while maintaining the integrity of the overall design language,” opines Patil. For instance, the mobile charging stations have been designed keeping in consideration possibilities for wireless mobile charging in the future.
The infrastructure development in India is growing at a very rapid pace be it the growth of public infrastructure like roadways, airports, railways, metros, Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS), or private infrastructure which includes commercial retail spaces, IT/technology, hospitality, healthcare amongst others. “The urban infrastructure will continue to grow in the coming years which will require design, technology and engineering expertise. Tata Elxsi being in the space of design, are helping clients deliver design and engineering services across areas, be it airports, metros, MRTS to designing experiences for commercial and retail spaces amongst others,” concludes Patil.
| Connecting T2 | ||
Tata Teleservices has partnered with GVK led Mumbai International Airport (MIAL) offering end-to-end voice and data services at the recently inaugurated T2 at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA). This partnership is a seven year contract wherein Tata Teleservices will be the exclusive telecommunications provider for MIAL for the said period. As a part of this partnership, the company has provided fixed voice and data services over a secure platform. “For connectivity, we have done exclusive fibre rollouts for connecting the airport terminal to our infrastructure. The rollouts have been done at three layers with each having a multi-protection path. In the last mile, which connects to the terminal, we have provided a multipath fibre/ring protection. As for the top layer, which is the core network where the date moves in, we have provided protection through Automatically Switched Optical Network (ASON),” explains Vishal Rally, regional COO (west), enterprise business, Tata Teleservices. The company has also provided a range of connections under voice services which includes centrix and walkie connection to name a few. However, incorporating the fibre rollouts were a challenge since it had to be done without disrupting the ongoing services at the existing airport he states. “Since there was an existing airport, we had to do live-live connectivity so that there was no disruption of the earlier services. For this we rolled out the services at the new terminal and when both the terminals were working the transition took place,” opined Rally adding, “We also had to plan for scalability while rolling out our services. Hence the capacity buildup is almost 10 times the capacity that is required presently since over a period of time operations will increase with increasing airlines coming into India and through international traffic buildup.” As for future proofing the technology being incorporated into T2, Rally mentions, “In terms of last mile connectivity the fibre is nearly future proof since all the fibre is underground. The existing technology that has been incorporated can be upgraded to the latest one in the premises itself without disrupting the operations. The fibre rollouts have multiple fibre ranges creating multiple paths so that even if one stops working the others keep working. Plus, all the fibre paths are being remotely monitored at our data centre 24/7.” |
