Social capital as a design parameter for product-service system design - Based on case study of the fare evasion problem in metro transportation -

To design a Product-Service System (PSS), designers often set assumptions about how stakeholder will perform an expected behavior and abuse system as well. Therefore designer needs to consider stakeholder normal usage, and stakeholder abuse of the system for designing a PSS. A PSS based on a low trust level of social capital has to spend extra resource for avoiding risk, and a PSS based on a high trust level of social capital does not need to spend much cost to control risk. For example, self-regulatory ticketing system in metro transportation for the ULM/Neu Ulm region in Germany is convenient and runs by low cost. Otherwise, the public transportation system of Seoul has a strict ticketing system which run by a high cost and also limits the freedom of passengers. Because PSS designer cannot control social capital directly, a designer needs to manage social capital as a design parameter for making an efficient PSS. This study analyzes how the social capital affects PSS, suggests to use social capital as a design parameter and proposes a hypothetical model. By understanding how social capital impacts on PSS, a PSS designer may find an appropriate solution that provides the best efficiency and user experience with low cost, long term sustainability for a society.