In its Programme for Government, Welsh Government have committed to modernise taxi services in Wales to make services safer, greener and fairer.
Each local authority in Wales holds information about the taxi and private hire drivers and vehicles it licences. Some of this information is available to the public. Previous reviews by the Law Commission and the UK Government recommended that sharing licensing information between local authorities and with passengers would help improve safety and confidence of passengers.
User-centred passenger safety
We were keen to explore passenger safety in a user-centred way. The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 requires us to involve people and to work together to achieve our goals. We wanted to avoid jumping to solutions without understanding the role of local authorities and the attitudes and behaviours of passengers to safety.
We were keen to work with the Centre for Digital Public Services and learn from their skilled and experienced team who take a user-centred design approach.
We’ve formed one team and have made excellent progress using Agile methodology. We hold twice weekly meetings (stand-ups) which has helped to keep the project moving at pace, and also used tools including Slack and Trello to help us manage the work.
From the early stages, speaking to people has challenged our assumptions about passenger safety. I’m convinced that taking a user-centred approach will lead to better policy decisions.
If you would like to take part in user research, email user.research@digitalpublicservices.gov.wales
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Modernising the taxi and private hire vehicle sector