SEOUL DESIGN AWARD

This mobile technology was jointly developed by CO:ACTUS and SK Telecom to support communication between taxi drivers with hearing impairment and passengers, and to ensure safe driving.

Though taxi driver is one of the jobs people with hearing disability wanted, there have been concerns over safety. Therefore, they engineered the service from the perspective of universal design and information access of people with hearing impairment. This will enable taxi drivers to communicate with passengers conveniently without any disruption in the operation of the vehicle, while passengers will be able to use those taxis safely to their destination with peace of mind. In order to develop this solution, the designers sought advice from taxi companies in Seoul, taxi drivers, passengers and organizations of people with disabilities. They also provided 5-week training sessions to nurture taxi drivers with hearing impairment.

‘Goyohan Taxi(The Quiet Taxi)’ service operated by people with hearing disabilities was launched in June 2018. As of June 2020, 93 taxi drivers are working for the service. This is a solution that can be replicated to taxi companies and ride-hailing platform in other cities around the world.