Design a carpooling app for women developed by Uber.

Question

Design a carpooling app for women developed by Uber.

Asked at Uber in the past year

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Product/market fit

Carpooling is most effective when there’s a known source and destination as well as a window of commute - commuting to/from work, commuting to/from college, commuting to/from shared activities such as gym/dance classes.
I’d like to focus on such scenarios of commuting to/from a known fixed point at known times. Here are the personas, their use-cases and challenges:
Car owner:
- Commute from point a to point b at certain points during the day.
- Allow other women riders to join me along the way and earn money from it.
  - I don’t want to wait around to find riders, would prefer if they’re known and ready early enough.
  - I don’t want last minute route changes to pick up riders. The route I take should be fairly close to the shortest route to my destination.
- Leverage benefits such as utilizing the carpool lane to get to my destination quicker.
- Socialize/network with my riders, especially on the professional front.
  - Having people from completely unknown backgrounds may have a safety concern for me. I’d prefer to have people I know or work/study at the same place as me.
Rider:
- Find a carpool option that can take me from point a to point b at a given time.
  - I don’t want to have uncertainty at the last minute, would prefer if the rider is fixed early enough.
  - Don’t want to walk too much to reach the carpool.
- Know details about the car, the driver as well as the price for carpooling.
  - Don’t want to commute in a car that is in a poor condition, safety concerns.
  - Don’t want to ride with a driver that is reckless/aggressive on the road or unfriendly.
- Socialize/network with the driver and other riders, especially on the professional front.

Solutions, Score and KPIs

Challenge	Solution	Score	KPIs
Drivers and riders both would like predictability in filling out the carpool early enough.	Drivers can register a commute or a set of commutes in the future (let’s say a month), define the cadence, time, %age variability in the route as well as set the price. This price should be in a range Uber can dictate based on the rates it would charge for a taxi service to avoid bidding wars. Riders can search for [source, destination] pairs and see the eligible carpools available, along with the time to pick-up and walking distance. Riders can then place a request to carpool which sends a notification to the driver.	Cost - 4 Value - 16 Score - 4	Engagement: # of drivers registering at least one carpool. # of riders requesting at least one carpool. # of carpools sliced by locality/destination. Average time to fill out a carpool. Average time to approve carpool requests. Average wait time at each pickup stop. Average total commute time. Revenue: Average monthly cost for riders. Average monthly revenue for drivers. Monthly revenue sliced by locality.
Riders want to commute in good quality cars with friendly drivers to have a pleasant experience.	Uber creates a new app/workflow called carpool for women. Women can register their cars as drivers or register themselves as riders. Uber does a background check on the drivers, their driving record, condition of the car, history of fines/incursions and starts the driver with a base score. Any rider can see the driver’s stats on punctuality, friendliness, driving style prior to booking. Riders can rate drivers Similarly, drivers would like to have friendly riders who are punctual. They can similarly see the rider stats and choose to accept/decline a carpool request.	Cost - 2 Value - 8 Score - 4	Acquisition: # of drivers registering. # of riders registering. Engagement: %age distribution of drivers by rating. %age distribution of riders by rating. # of complaints filed against drivers/riders, sliced by topics.
Drivers and riders would like to socialize/network professionally.	Ability to see where the co-riders/drivers work/go to college. This can be facilitated by linking linkedIn profiles, allowing them to network with each other professionally. Provide a connect request option.	Cost - 1 Value - 2 Score - 2	Acquisition: # of accounts linked. Engagement: # of connection requests sent. # of carpools containing at least 2 or more people working/studying at the same place.

Pranjal Mundra · Answer 2 · 2023-11-13T21:38:05+0000

I would like to ask some clarifying questions so that we both are on the same page:

1. Are we looking at a particular geography for launching this? - You can consider India

2. Is their any specific business goal that propmpted this or did we sense customer demand for the same? - We did extensive surveys to find out that women feel more safe when they are travelling with fellow female passengers. Further, we want more engagement from females on the app.

3. By carpooling for women would it be correct to assume that the idea is to have a usual uber cab with riders being women who want to carpool? - Yes

4. Are we looking to incorporate this feature in the existing application or a standalone app? - Up to you to decide

That would be the claridying questions that I had. I would want to build this feature within the existing app for Uber.

The strcuture that I'm going to follow will look something like this: I will discuss the goal of Uber and how carpooling for women ties with the over arching goal of the company, Then I will try to look at certain user segements that will be relevent for the app and then priortize amongst them and then look to come up with some pain points for them, followed up by some innovative solutions. Does that sound good? Yes

The goal of uber is to reimagine the way world moves, for the better. I believe a carpooling service dedicatied for women ties in well with the goal of Uber as it empowers women to travel safely and economically.

User Segements

1. Working Women who want to commute during the week to and fro from their office

2. Female Students who want to commute to their eductaion institutes (school, college, etc.)

3. Women who want to run certain day to day errands

4. Women who want to avail ride hailding services for going to a party or event

I will like to prioritze the first user segement due to their high frequency of using this feature and due to their spending habits for daily commute.

Pain Points

1. Getting fellow passengers on board in an efficient and timely manner.

2. Unable to find familiar faces on carpool leading to a subpar experience.

3. Music is a important part of a car ride and having to ride with users who have different music prefrences can be difficult.

4. Certain amount of comfort expected and prefreneces expected in terms of seat prefrence, no. of passengers in the back etc.

I will priortize painpoints 2 & 3 on the basis of sevrity of pain.

Solutions

1. Sharepool - Allowing users to share the carpool ride with their collegigs via Whatsapp to hop on the same ride.

2. Org Plus - Indicating users that a passenger belonging to their orgnization is already in the car to increase chances of booking (by drop location data)

3. Music Match - Leveraging Spotify/YT Music API to showcase music prefrences of a existing passengers while booking a carpool ride.

4. Playlist Gen - Creating and playing a playlists based on the top artists of the passengers to have a musicaly inclusive experience.

Based on effort and impact, I would like to prioritize solution 1 and 3 for the MVP.

Tradeoffs & Risks

1. There could be cases where before the user with whom the ride is shared, some other user books a cab and the intented purpose of the feature is defeated.

2. Not a lot of people in India use Spotify regularly and hence would be difficult to element the Music Match feature.

Tarun Kumar · Answer 3 · 2023-10-23T12:43:58+0000

Few clarifying questions at first,

Is this a standalone app or bundled within the current Uber app? (Answer: You decide)
What is the objective for doing the same? (Answer: Up to you.)
What is the user persona in consideration here? (Answer: Up to you.)
For the sake of discussion can I restrict this to Indian geography only? (Answer: Ok.)
Is there a time constraint? (Answer: We want to launch this fast.)
Is there a budget constraint? (Answer: Nothing as such)
We focus only on cars for this particular case (Ans: Ok)

Alright moving ahead,

I'd want to think if this app should be bundled within Uber's current app. I think having visibility of such a feature within Uber's app would solve for discovery and adoption. Also, this can act as a good pull from female users who use the Uber app.

For objective, the north star metric for Uber is the number of trips completed, where Uber also already has solved for allocation problem way back. I think Uber can leverage it's allocation engine

to match the rider with the driver are this way they can charge a commission fee in the future if there is a high retention and engagement around this feature.

Would like to understand the carpooling a bit better, there are couple of ways in which carpooling can work.

User triggered cab sharing: This way user who is travelling solo on a slightly longer trip can give upsell the vacant seats for other co-passengers. The incentive is that users can split fare with the new co-passenger. User can also suggest if they want female co-passengers that are going in a particular direction only.
Secondly, personal car sharing: A user who is heading to a particular destination can seek if female co-passengers are willing to share the ride. They can give specific details like going to particular destination, current location and seek women only co-passengers
Last, the cars are shared and users who subscribe to these cars can then share the trip with co-passengers.

Next would be the scope of the nature of trip

Short trip: Commute where travel time < 20 mins
Medium trip: Commute where travel time 20-90 mins
Long trip: Commute where time >= 90 mins

Based on two data points above, from the feasability and viability aspect Personal car sharing for medium trips makes more sense.

Why?

Sharing a cab is basically Uber share taxi, this model existed with Uber and was shut down for not being profitable.

Getting inventory of cars for users to get on subscription is a hassle and hence would not recommend this.

Short trips which is less than <20 minutes time, I don't want to be late because of xyz reason, hence I'd want to avoid this. This is actually not feasible and fruitful.

Long trip which is greater than 90mins, here the users generally travel with someone and they are looking to spend some quality time with their friends and family. I don't think this would be the case when one wants to carpool

Figuring our target user persona who will share their personal car:

Professionals going to offices
Students traveling to universities
Delivery vehicles going to a particular destination

User persona that would want to seek the service:

Young Professionals
College students
Gig-workers

Based on the above persona, I'd recommend we start targeting professionals who commute alone and are willing to share their personal car space with a passenger on the way while they are commuting to office and they take 20 mins to 60 mins.

On the passenger site, we can target young professionals, college students and gig-workers who are willing to request alternate ride types to reach a particular destination.

Check with the interviewer if this sounds ok, then we carry on with our analysis.

Moving ahead, I'd like to look at the needs of driver and rider

Commuter needs:

I want to have a safe trip from point A to point B
Since it's a long trip I am willing to share trip if there is an incentive
I want to share my car but that should be a hassle free experience
I want my sharing experience to be good

Rider needs:

I want to travel safely from point A to point B
I'm not able to find cabs during peak hours, hence I'm willing to try alternate bookings
I want a hassle free experience while booking alternate rides
I want pickup and drop in my office or apartment society
I want to transport some items from A to B

Based on above needs following are key to success of the feature also we focus only on driver and rider sharing trip not transporting items:

Trust: For drivers and riders, share who they are, what do they do and what do they like, along with pictures and personal quote. Show number of trips they have completed in car-pooling feature.
Safety: Drivers and riders have access to SOS button, triggering that will alert authorities nearby and also the close contacts.

Features:

Create sharing flow for drivers
Create alternate booking flow for riders (New cab category which is women only car-pooling)
Specify pickup and drop points for drivers
Riders can subscribe to car-pooling with a particular driver
Riders can specify their pickup and drop points

Flow:

Drivers specify the destination > They follow a particular route > Based on this route and location of the incoming pickup request the request is shown to the driver > Driver accepts it via voice or tap > Checks the distance > Navigates to the distance > Picks up the rider > Confirms rider identity and moves along

The metrics I'd like to track here:

No. of trips completed in carpooling feature or CF
- No. of trips cancelled (CF)
- Time taken to pickup and start the trip
- Time taken to drop and move ahead on the trip
- First time fulfilment
- First time completeion
CSAT
Driver retention
Rider retention

Trust and safety are critical pillars, along with that some indicators like off route distance, time taken to pickup/drop to understand how are users feeling while using the feature. Would also conduct some user interviews to understand what are the challenges in the system.

With respect to GTM,

I'd first like to Onboard drivers, get their background verified instantly. Ensure the car condition is good enough, as they are sharing Uber experience for the riders.

Next I'd start off with Email, Social Media and push notification campaigns to reach out to more users to join the driver list.

Secondly, use marketing channels to convey about such a service to the riders.

Seek additional data from female riders, nudge them to create their profile for a female only trip assistance.

When riders are not getting trip via traditional way, nudge or cross-sell this new service to them

The new service for female riders gets activated as a tab on the app.

The message around safety, trust and women only service needs to be laid out in the first few communication.

Summarize this scenario, for the interviewer.

Can someone review this.