Saturday, May 14, 2016

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should...or at the very least you need to think it through first!

But the crowning glory of my technology and travel experience had to be hiring/ renting a car in the UK.

Driving in the UK is now apparently so dangerous, that my parents automobile insurance can no longer cover non-resident UK citizens! I find it absolutely fascinating that I am no longer allowed to drive their car with permission, even though I am a direct relation, hold a current UK drivers license, and am an experienced driver (>30 years). I could not even drive my father home from the airport to save him driving both ways. It would seem that I have been driving too long on the wrong side of the road, in a third world country (USA) that has no drivers licensing and non existent traffic laws. Of course, I am sure my parents could have paid more money to add additional coverage to their insurance. And maybe, this new rule was due to people registering and insuring their cars through their parents at a cheaper senior citizen rate. But I digress...

With Josephine in high school, she has begun to seriously consider universities and colleges that she would like to attend. Being an Oxford man (alumnus), I wanted to be sure to tour some of the colleges and drop by the admissions office while we were in the UK. We also has some friends setup a tour of the Other Place (Cambridge) with someone who teaches music and has "access," i.e., knows the porters and college staff. So we rented a car from Enterprise in Canterbury after we got back from Paris. The pickup process and paperwork was standard, nothing weird from technology standpoint, except for a little statement in the contract that leasees were responsible for any tickets or infractions gained whilst driving the car. Makes sense. Same anywhere in the world really. It did make me think though as I know that the UK make wide use of speed cameras and mailing speeding tickets to the registered owner of the car, in this case Enterprise, and then they would forward the ticket with a £35 administrative fee. So I took careful note of this, and proceed to drive the car very carefully up to Cambridge.

The obvious route from my parents is around the M25 London Orbital motorway (freeway), also affectinately referred to as the "Jam Doughnut" due to the regularity with which it gets backed up with traffic. The eastern section has to cross the Thames estuary at Dartford. For the longest time there was a 4 lane Dartford tunnel, and more recently a suspension bridge called the Dartford crossing, which allows another 4 lanes clockwise, to the tunnels 4 lanes counter-clockwise. A toll has been in place pretty much forever, and used to involve toll booths where you threw in your couple of quid (£1-2, $2-3). When we crossed this year, the booths were gone! Yay! No more tolls? Err, not so fast. A sign to the side of the road informed drivers to go online to dart.com to pay. £2.50 for a car. Failure to do so would result in enforcement and fines. Fortunately, I knew what was going on, and logged on once we got to our friends house and paid using my debit card. The website correctly identified the number plate and I paid the £2.50. I also got a receipt for the payment indicating the date and time. So I thought all was good, being responsible for any charges while renting the car.

You can imagine my surprise when three weeks later a received a DART violation letter from Enterprise, and notification of a £35 fee to my credit card per the terms of the rental agreement. I called DART and requested clarification. They explained that while I had paid, it was possible that my payment had been applied to an outstanding toll charge on an earlier day. I was directed to completed on contestation form online and provide proof of payment, which I did. I am still trying to clear things up with Enterprise. 

So it would appear that some high tech company sold the British government on yet another application of number plate recognition. I am sure that they extolled the reduction in peak use congestion around the old coin toll booths, and the easy and efficiency of digital financial transactions. Unfortunately, according to my parents, the new DART charge has been an operational disaster and public relations nightmare. It has created a huge volume of customer service inquiries, complaints, fee and fine corrections in addition to the enforcement work. All this extra work was overlooked due to poor research and analysis before implementation. I was then informed that processing my DART contestation could now take up to 48 days, up from the original 30 days. I also noticed on the drive that there were no signs with alternate languages for foreign visitors and tourists who would not have a clue about the toll. And I am not even sure whether DART would have access to other countries drivers license information to know who to send the letters and fines to. 

I would love to see the hidden administration burden and cost the new DART system has created that was never included in the original business case. And if that could well have changed, or at least influenced, the decision if it had been known up front. 

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

That's a really cool use of technology...but what's going on behind the curtain?

The next experience with modern technology in the UK was at the Heathrow car park/ parking garage. My father was at the airport to meet us. We came into the new Terminal 2 with a very swish, clean and efficient experience through to baggage claim. We then made our way to the car. I noticed that they have space monitoring (IR-motion sensors over every parking spot). That's pretty standard. We have had the same technology in the Portland, Oregon airport for longer than Heathrow. This allows you instantly know how many spaces are available and where. The sensors have a visible light that glows red when occupied and green when available. Reader boards as you drive in tell you the number of spaces available on each floor.

The difference at Heathrow? They have installed digital cameras pointing at every parking slot, and these are setup to do number plate recognition. Outside the elevator is a little computer kiosk with a sign "Locate your car." Type in your number plate, and the kiosk will find your car, show you a picture and direct you to it!  Pretty cool idea. No idea how well it works, but I overheard people in the car park who were also pretty impressed by the service.

I would seem though that the real reason for the technology is tracking payment. The system can monitors who has paid and not paid digitally. When you go to the pay booth/ kiosk, you enter your license plate, it shows you a picture and you pay for your parking. No need to display a ticket in your window any more. And the system knows when you arrived and when you left. No need to have any poorly paid meter maids or parking enforcement employees. Park and don't pay? The system will use your car's number plate to access your address, and send you a parking fine/ violation in the mail.

I saw this technology in use all over the UK. In other pay and display car parks (Oxford Park & Ride), and the City of London uses license plate recognition to enforce its Congestion Fee, which is assessed on all vehicles going in the center of London during peak hours (mainly day time).

Not sure if any of the public had any concerns about the privacy implications. My first thought was who gets access to this data, and why? The UK is the most digital and CCTV monitored population in the world. And it seems to be getting worse. Austerity measures after the global recession have resulted in huge cuts to government services and programs. There are fewer police to enforce the laws and consequently an ever increasing reliance on technology to do the work. Police departments now have technicians sitting in control centers watching hundreds of video feeds looking for anything that warrents sending a car. If this sounds Orwellian to you, then you are of the same mind as me. Don't know Orwellian? Download "1984" by George Orwell and read it!

Ultimately the use of number plate reading technology in car parks will become common place where the business can justify the cost, and the cost continues to drop. Unfortunately in this case it means laying off (or reassigning) people checking parking stickers. But there will be an additional administrative cost dealing with customer service complaints and corrections where the technology misses the mark. Where the technology works well, the public will accept it. Of course the converse is also true and leads to public outrage. I will cover a "fail" example next.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Look before you leap...or when implementing new technology, test, test,test!

My recent trip to back to the UK (December 2015) was an interesting technology user experience. I currently live in the USA, on the West Coast in Portland, Oregon. I work in Information Technology, or IT as a Business Technology Manager within the City of Portland. So working in the public sector, I am always on the look out for great and effective uses of technology as I travel around, live, play and work. So my latest trip back to the British Isles, and a side trip over to Paris, France was no exception. The British and American civilizations are very comparable in their use of technology, however there are very interesting differences in their adoption and application.

So the first experience when traveling is the airline check-in, and the industry move to computer kiosks rather than check-in agents. This move has been going on for some time, so the airlines have had plenty of opportunity to field test and make improvements to their online website and physical kiosk check-in. But for some reason for me, traveling internationally causes these to error out pretty much all the time. I think it is the need to have/scan passports, and all the additional information and security that occurs for international travel. And I have a green card which probably the last straw that throws the system. I never have a problem with domestic travel where my credit card and driver's license work just fine. Passports now have chips in them but the airlines either don't have access to them, or need to upgrade all their equipment in order to read the chips.

No real difference here between the US and UK check in other than the fact that UK airport and airline staff don't want to believe that the kiosk check-in doesn't work, almost yelling at me when I try to locate and walk over to a manned desk to get assistance. US staff still seem better trained in customer service and are more helpful when you have problems with the machines.

Immigration and border control still have the all too familiar long lines/ queues, and have relied on 'real' immigrant officers. Though recently, I have seen the move to technology in this area. The UK has some unmanned immigration stations for British passport holders who have chip enabled passports. You place your passport on a 'reader' and then look into a camera. First time I used it, I stood for ages before it let me through. It had me worried for a bit. I can only assume that it was creating an entry for me in the 'digital' tracking database, and possibly doing face recognition and confirmation with my stored image. Your travel group all needs to have the upgraded passports to use this, so since I do not travel alone very much, I have not used it much.

The US has begun to use kiosk technology for immigration. I have seen a couple of 'voluntary' and 'fast pass' kiosks in recent years, obviously doing some early testing. On our last trip through Vancouver BC (which has a US immigration presence for flights to the US), we used kiosks that collect the same information as you provide on a US Landing Card, and you use the machine as a family unit. This seemed to be a pilot installation and there were staff helping people use the machines. My wife and daughter were successful, but I was rejected after three attempts. The flash on the camera was incorrectly adjusted, and over-exposing everyone's faces. The machine was obviously trying to do face recognition but it was failing due to the poor photo quality. Successful people collected a receipt from the machine (in place of your landing card), but either way you were still interviewed by an immigration officer. Whilst it was frustrating dealing with the pilot kiosks, I applaud the US immigration for testing the technology out, and getting feedback, rather than rushing to implement fully unmanned immigration processing. The US continues to use more biometrics on Resident Aliens and tourist visitors collecting finger prints and a photo at immigration.

More to come on my travels. Up next,
"That's a really cool use of technology...but what's going on behind the curtain?"


Saturday, February 13, 2016

The pitfall of modern, mobile technology, undermining human connection and local communities

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE technology. I am interested in the successful and appropriate use and implementation rather than just having the latest gizmo, gadget, or mobile app. I am interested in usability, accessibility, ethical, privacy/security of technology. Especially as the world becomes more and more digitally dependent and connected. Few people seem to be asking why, not because they don't want or need the new technology, but whether we are actually better off with it. And what is the human cost of having the new function or capability. Companies will always tout the benefits in order to get us to buy their products. But they very rarely point out the downsides unless there is a large public safety concern like texting and driving. 

I ride the bus to work every day, and have done for about 20 years. Back in the 90s, people on the bus would be reading newspapers and books, and would be listening to music on their Walkman or iPod. but even with this technology, people would be talking amongst themselves, with their friends or coworkers, or would strike up conversations about the news or the book that they were reading. Fast forward to today (in the 10s), and everyone has their heads down on their mobile devices. Conversations are rare...the bus is eerily quiet. Go to a restaurant today, and friends and families are face down in their mobile phones and not conversing over the dinner table. Mobile technology that connects us over distance seems to be disconnecting us face-to-face. 

I am not the only person to notice this. In fact more and more people seem to be pointing it out, though it's amuzing to me that they report it like it is some amazing discovery. There certainly seems to be an addictive nature to mobile, at-your-fingertips information and communication. People acknowledge it, and the potential impact, but keep right on doing it. The original tech addiction was the Crack-berry, people addicted to their Blackberry phone with text and email delivered instantly, and all the time. The younger generation are often singled out as the addicted generation, but I have seen all generations doing it. Save the senior citizens who probably never experienced or saw a need for mobile data. But I predict that if they were shown it and allow to immerse themselves, many would succumb. And of course, there are those in any generation, that don't see the need and actively avoid the mobile technology. Probably fewer in the younger/ teen generation as there is so much peer pressure there. 

The concern as I see it is the impact on human relationships, and the ability to reach out and relate to the human beings around us. To learn human relationships through social media, and online media, provides an often warped perspective, open to extreme and negative assumptions about others. This leads to rigid beliefs, judgement, name calling and isolation (HATE). When you get to meet people face to face, understand them and relate to them, there is the possibility of empathy, affinity and community (LOVE). Which would you prefer for the human race? So next time you are on the bus, or having dinner, put down the mobile technology, look around you, and reach out to someone you don't know, or reconnect to someone you do. It may be difficult at first. You may go into some level of tech withdrawal, and feel a bit awkward. Hang in there! You will work it through, and you will be surprised how much better you will feel.