Smart Travel, towards luggage free travelling in the future

Travelling has the ability to gives us freedom to discover our surroundings in a spontaneously manner. However, struggles and frustration during travelling can cause many difficulties to reach this state of mind. In the current travel situation, we have to bring our luggage from our departure place to a transfer hub. After arriving at the destination, we recollect the luggage and wherefrom we travel to the final destination together with the luggage. This project started with the vision that in some years, we pack our bag or suitcase at home with what we need on our trip. Then, from the moment when we close and lock our suitcase or bag, until the moment when we arrive at our final destination, we do not have to care or think or worry about it. As a starting point, a scenario was used to set boundaries for the analysis and further design phases. The starting scenario was an innovative transport service, which takes away many struggles passengers experience during their journey from location A to B. The goal of the research was to test the current market state with the proposed scenario to be able to make the conclusion if there is a foundation to further develop this scenario into a service. Through an extended analysis of the current market, stakeholder (traveller, airport, airline, security and travel management companies) and technology state, a promising future for the presented scenario has been seen. Within the aviation travel industry, all stakeholders (except the traveller) show focus to increase the user experience of provided products and services. The traveller will start appreciate experiences more than buying products. In addition, their busy work schedule will increase the interest of travellers to use concierge services to manage their activities and let them redesign their work-life balance. In the analysis phase, a promising future for the presented scenario is presented, following by an extended ideation and conceptualization phase. Three concepts were created with the goal to provide travellers with a service that will allow struggle free door-to-door journey. Each concept is designed for a market introduction further in the future. The first concept is using transporters that pickup the travellers luggage from their departure location. From this moment until the moment of arrival, the service is taking care of all the luggage arrangements. With use of location tracking sensors, the luggage will communicate its location in real time to the traveller and other stakeholders. Drones are used to transport the luggage in the second concept. With the use of advanced scanners, the luggage will be checked when being transported from the departure location to the airport. With the drones dropping of the luggage close to the airplane, the benefit for airports are saving on their extended luggage transport system. For the final concept, the core value of current travelling is challenged by questioning why we are bringing luggage with us while travelling. What if we can travel without luggage and still enjoy our trip to the fullest. The designed service will provide the traveller with products needed on the trip. By using the method of weighted objectives, the no-luggage concept was chosen for further development. The concept evolved into the service James, that gives travellers the possibility to travel without any luggage and get a personalized offer based on the activity they want to undertake. Besides this practical offer, James also challenges the assumptions travellers have about the way you have to travel. The current type of travelling is based around planning most of your steps, where James offers the traveller to not plan at all and follow their impulses on the activities they want to undertake on their trips. James will take care of all the details. James offers travellers a personalized product offer based on the activity the traveller wants to do, the location they are and their personal preferences. Before use, each traveller has to create a Digital Fashion ID that consist of their body measurements, their eye, hair and skin colour and their brand and fashion preferences. This combination of variables, combined with the activity to undertake and location will be used by the algorithm of James. This algorithm will make a selection in the available products and provide every user with a suitable and personalized offer. For travellers the service James will free them from many travel irritations, since no luggage has to be carried around. When you can start travelling without the need to arrive at the airport hours before a flight, a flight and a holiday will start more relaxed. In addition, when you arrive at your destination, without the urge to bring your luggage to a hotel or other place of accommodation, you can immediately start exploring a destination, attend a meeting or meet with friends. In addition, James gives travellers the possibility to decide what they want to do when they want to do this, without the urge to plan these activities beforehand. Airlines, airports and security will see major benefits of the service James as well. Airlines will experience a decrease of luggage to transport from A to B, which benefits their total operation. First, they will save on their fuel bill. Second, the possibility exists to rent the leftover cargo space to transport companies. Finally, when their planes need replacement, they can decide to order smaller planes since the space is not needed anymore. Airports and security will experience even bigger changes in their operation structure. Their future operational system does not need to manage a huge amount of luggage anymore, which is currently the focus. In addition, a major part of airport security is related to luggage. When less check-in luggage is used, airport security can change their work focus to other security aspects. For both stakeholders this creates possibilities to focus fully on increasing the total passenger experience. The no-luggage service of James can also be an extension for travel management companies (TMC). The service has the capability to improve the overall travel experience of its clients and add more concierge functionality to their total offer. This means that the user of the service will be provided with everything that is needed. In a combination with planned activities, a TMC can use James to provide its clients with a completely organized trip and activity. James shows many benefits for its stakeholders; however, its main strength is its ability to challenge the assumptions stakeholders have about the way we have to travel. Instead of accepting that you have to travel with luggage, James offers the possibility to do the opposite.