Seattle Gridlock

If you’re familiar with Seattle, you are likely familiar with its traffic issues—issues which are further exacerbated by accidents that quickly spill traffic into the city’s grid. And some of the incidents start with a different kind of spill. My capstone team was tasked with solving a problem: How can we get drivers off the road during major gridlock incidents? In specific, we had a few problems to solve:

1. Information reaching the public is inconsistent because interagency communication is fragmented.
2. The current transit solutions are only partial solutions to the needs of Seattle drivers and transit users (see table below).
3. People want to be empowered to make their own decisions rather than be prescribed one.

My interdisciplinary team of Human Centered Design, Civil Engineering, Computer Science, and Communications students worked alongside WSDOT, SDOT, King County Metro, and the Mobility Innovation Center. As the Project Manager and UX Designer, I led the effort to define our problem space while keeping the group on track and bringing our ideas to life.