<p>From having relied on its employees in the interaction with customers, the service industry now move towards an increased adoption of technology to enhance the value of the service</p><p>offering to the customer. This development has also reached the public transport sector which is traditionally seen as low-tech.</p><p>In this study we investigate how the customers experience the use of high-tech supporting services within a low-tech context. The case that is used is the city-bus transport provider Karlstadsbuss who provide a high-tech supporting service called Live, which delivers realtime information on bus departures through a website, a WAPsite, and electronic boards at certain bus stops.</p><p>Focused group interviews were used to get in-dept information from commuters of how they perceive Live. Results show that respondents do not use Live website or WAPsite because the information is not worth the effort of use. Commuters question the service because many</p><p>buses do not run according to the Live-schedule. Still the commuters say they benefit from Live because it contributes alternative ways of finding departure times, and it presents an overview of departure options. However, if the information is in real-time or not is of</p><p>secondary importance.</p>

From having relied on its employees in the interaction with customers, the service industry now move towards an increased adoption of technology to enhance the value of the service offering to the customer. This development has also reached the public transport sector which is traditionally seen as low-tech. In this study we investigate how the customers experience the use of high-tech supporting services within a low-tech context. The case that is used is the city-bus transport provider Karlstadsbuss who provide a high-tech supporting service called Live, which delivers realtime information on bus departures through a website, a WAPsite, and electronic boards at certain bus stops. Focused group interviews were used to get in-dept information from commuters of how they perceive Live. Results show that respondents do not use Live website or WAPsite because the information is not worth the effort of use. Commuters question the service because many buses do not run according to the Live-schedule. Still the commuters say they benefit from Live because it contributes alternative ways of finding departure times, and it presents an overview of departure options. However, if the information is in real-time or not is of secondary importance.

Increasingly unpredictable, extreme and erratic rainfall with higher temperatures threatens to undermine the adaptive capacity of food systems and ecological resilience of smallholder landscapes. Despite growing concern, land managers still lack quantitative techniques to collect empirical data about the potential impact of climatic variability and change. This thesis aims to assess how ecosystem services and function and how this links with biodiversity and human wellbeing in smallholder agro-ecosystems in a changing climate. To this end, rather than relying on scenarios or probabilistic modelling, space was used as a proxy for time to compare states in disparate climatic conditions. Furthermore, an integrated methodological framework to assess ecosystem services at the field and landscape level was developed and operationalised, the results of which can be modelled with measures of wellbeing. Various multidisciplinary analytical tools were utilised, including ecological and socio-economic surveys, biological assessments, participatory open enquiry, and documenting ethnobotanical knowledge. The study was located within monsoon rice farms in the Terai Plains of Nepal, and dry season vegetable farms in Northern Ghana. Sites were selected that are climatically and culturally diverse to enable comparative analysis, with application to broad areas of adaptive planning. The linkages that bring about biophysical and human changes are complex and operate through social, political, economic and demographic drivers, making attribution extremely challenging. Nevertheless, it was demonstrated that within hotter and drier conditions in Ghana long-tongued pollinators and granivores, important for decomposition processes and pollination services, are more abundant in farms. Results further indicated that in cooler and drier conditions in Nepal, the taxonomic diversity of indigenous and close relative plant species growing in and around farms, important for the provisioning of ecosystem services, decreases. All other things equal, in both Nepal and Ghana findings indicate that overall human wellbeing may be adversely effected in hotter conditions, with a potentially significantly lower yields, fewer months of the year in which food is available, higher exposure to natural hazards and crop loss, unemployment, and psychological anxiety. Yet, surveys indicate smallholders continue to maintain a fair diversity of species in and around farms, which may allow them to secure basic necessities from provisioning ecosystem services. Moreover, farmers may employ adaptive strategies such as pooling labour and food sharing more frequently, and may have greater access to communication, technology, and infrastructure. Novel methodological and empirical contributions of this research offer predictive insights that could inform innovations in climate-smart agricultural practice and planning.