Living Lab Bus platform for IoT service development in public transport context

The living lab paradigm involves people in the innovation process and is used for studying user read needs in an everyday use environment. Living Lab Bus (LLB) is a cooperative approach bringing together different partners involved in providing transport and mobility services with an aim to contribute towards ease, attractiveness and efficiency of public transportation. Ten electric buses in normal operation in the Helsinki region serve as the LLB platform to spark and test new ideas and solutions as well as for collecting user feedback on and ideas for new services. The LLB collaboration provides a concrete platform enabling easier development, testing and demonstration of new solutions in a real public transport context. The implemented platform is a mixture of commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) and prototype components and software provided by VTT, universities and private companies. This paper describes the system architecture and technical details of the LLB platform and design principles behind the applied technical solutions. The system has to ensure enough functional flexibility to respond to evolving needs and to assure overall security – despite the system’s openness.