Survey on Water Booths at Platforms of Indian Railways Addressing Ergonomic Design Issues

Indian Railways have provided basic essential amenities at every station to fulfil the requirements of passengers. This paper is concerned with an important basic amenity which is the supply of drinking water through the water booth provided on all platforms. As drinking water is directly related to health, it warrants consistent neatness, cleanliness and hygienic condition of the water booths. The objectives of this research are to study the existing water booths at platforms from an ergonomic design perspective, to undertake a field survey of water booths at a few busy stations and to identify the root cause of problems in the existing water booths. Physical survey with a structured questionnaire has been conducted by taking the responses of passengers at five stations where express and local trains stop and at the other five stations where only local trains stop. To address the problem in a systematic manner, various design thinking tools such as empathy map, customer journey map, mind map, etc., have been explored. The Pareto analysis of the survey reveals that out of many trivial factors, seven become vital for the overall improvement of the existing water booths from an ergonomic design perspective. These vital factors include lack of hygiene, ergonomics, functionality, maintainability, adequacy of booth for disabled persons, economy and standard quality of tap. With the exploration of Pareto analysis and other design thinking tools on the information collected through survey on water booths, the effects of identified critical factors need to be improved.