Yo KAMINAGAI

Biographical note
Yo Kaminagai is born in 1958. He has been working in the RATP since his graduation as civil engineer (Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées) in 1980. He began in the Marketing team and was in charge of innovative projects, and specialized himself in passenger information. He was the first manager of this domain in 1990, before being invited to build the design management function in the company. A dedicated team was created and its growth allowed the progressive integration all the creative disciplines participating to the transport environments design (product design, information design, architecture, cultural and art management), in particular in the Environments and heritage Department, in charge of the projects management in these domains from 2008 to 2011. In March 2011 he was named Head of design beside the director of this department, to coordinate the creative design policies and promote the role of the environments quality in the corporate strategy, for the company and for the RATP Group. Since 2012 he performs this function in the Projects management Department, which steers the most of the RATP investments projects. He was also the chairperson of the Design & Culture platform of the UITP (International association of Public transport), to which he still participates, and serves in the boards of several important organisations in charge of design promotion and education in France (APCI, ENSCI, Le Lieu du Design, Cité du Design in St Etienne).

Presentation: E-bus : an innovative urban object ! (EBSF_2 Design Charter for new electric buses)
Because the architecture of the electric buses must be reviewed to integrate new components it is a key opportunity to radically transform the travelers’ experiences inside the vehicles, and the bus image and status in the cityscape, for users and non-users. Within the EBSF_2 European project, a dedicated working group gathering the different points of view (manufacturers, designers, operators) has been set-up to address a strategic question: can we express an electric bus as a new urban object? The outcome of group will be a Design Charter for new electric buses, consisting of illustrated chapters proposing design principles, which can be mixed by the manufacturers with their own brand standards to produce vehicles. This will be a first important step to foster the opportunities created by electric propulsion in making buses not only clean, but also more attractive. Main take-away points : strategic design definitions for new electric buses, recommendations to feed the design specifications for bus buyers and bus manufacturers, illustrations of the design principles which can be used by the bus designers.