Design improvement and evaluation for the passenger seat of Mugunghwa-ho train

무궁화호 열차 시트의 설계 개선 및 평가

Because passenger seat is one of the most important parts in the determination of passengers' satisfaction for train, it is absolutely important to design the passenger seat so that train passengers can satisfy. So, in the seat design it is necessary to consider passengers' characteristics, requirements, and dissatisfactions. However, passengers' dissatisfactions for the seat of Mugunghwa-ho train have been often raised through various routes. It is necessary to resolve their dissatisfactions to provide comfortable trip to passengers. So, we designed a new seat of Mugunghwa-ho train that resolved passengers' dissatisfactions. Our focusing design parts were the seat pan and the backrest of passenger seat. We investigated passengers' dissatisfactions for the seat of Mugunghwa-ho train through various methods and the human factors design guidelines through literature survey. We designed a new seat on the basis of investigated results. For newly designed seat, we evaluated comfort and sensible satisfaction in comparison with the existing seat. An experimental method and subjective methods were used in this evaluation. In all aspects, the new seat was superior to the existing.