Psychological comfort and discomfort in transport modes

Since a decade in ergonomics, comfort has been increasingly investigated with a focus on its psychological dimensions, based on the idea that comfort is an enjoyable, pleasant and relaxed psychological state felt by a person who is interacting with its surroundings. In contrast, discomfort is a tense and unpleasant state linked to negative emotions and sensations. We examine the various factors related to psychological comfort and discomfort experienced by users in different transport modes situations. From the literature we identified the following sources of comfort/discomfort: social relationship, safe/unsafe feeling, variable time control, attentional charge and possible multiactivity, need for control and social image. Our research question is twofold. On one hand, we want to specify situations of comfort/discomfort experienced by users. On the other hand, we aim at developing projective techniques to help users in anticipating the comfort/discomfort experience as well as their adhesion and reticence to change towards innovative ecological-friendly modes.