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Redesign an intercity bus stand for a Tier-2 city in your country.

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Clarification:

Bus stand - is where users stop to pick up and drop off passengers.

What is the goal ? Improve customer satisfaction and increase revenue

 

Before I proceed, I want to state the steps I will take to answer the question:

First, I will state different user types that would use this server

Next, I will select one of the user type 

Next, I will state different pain points for these user types

Next, I will find solutions to address these pain points

Finally recommend a solution and summarize my solution. 

 

User types

Daily user - this could be college students, or professionals going to office everyday

Occasional user - they use bus sometimes when other alternatives are not available

Tourists who use buses to transport different destionations

 

For our, case I would select daily users as they use the buses the most and for our goal it would make more sense.

 

Daily user pain points:

1. Have to wait for bus a lot. 

2. Payment method is not the best. I do not carry cash always.

3. Weather affects the wait, It can get too hot in summers or user can get wet 

4. The bus frequency is too low, next bus may not be availabe after 30 mins

5. It's too boring in the bus.

 

 

Let me list some solutions:

1. Create an app, that shows the bus route, how long before it arrives at bus stop. User can setup alerts to show exact arrival time of the bus at the bus stop.

2. User should be allowed to pay using the app. User should register with the app and sets up a payment method. When user enters the bus, user just scans the phone on the bus and the user gets charged directly through the app. No need to carry any cash. 

3. For weather, there should be an umbrella stand on the bus stop. User can scan the app and an umbrella pops out. Once bus arrives the puts the umbrella back. If umbrella is not returned, the user gets charged for the umbrella.

4. Provide personalized television screen on each seat. The user can select what to watch and pay for it using the app. This should be allowed at a discounted rate.

 

Let's prioritize my solution:

                     Customer satisfaction,   Cost,       Mandatory.      

1. App to show bus router          Very high                  V. High       Y

2. Payment                                  High                        V. High.      N

3. Weather                                 Medium.                    High          N

4. TV screens                             Medium                   V. High       N

 

Based on this, I would select creating an app to show bus routes, and arrival time and the payment feature. 

The bus app is required and it will show bus route and arrival time. This is a must have to increase customer satisfaction. 

Payment, is a nice option to have as it guarantees correct payment and provides convenience to the user. 

 

Providing umbrella, and TV screens are nice features but I would prioritize this for later versions of the product.

 

Metrics/KPI's to use:

1. Increase in customer after introducing feature

2. No. of user registering with the app

3. No. of user paying using the app

4. DAU

5. WAU

 

 

So to summarize,

I would create a bus app, bus users can register on the app, select the bus route that user wants to track, create an alert to alert the bus arrival time. User can set up a new payment method on the app, so user can just swipe the app on the bus and gets charged through the app. 

 

I would track, # of users registering on the app, daily/weekly usage of the app, no. of users setting a payment method, # of users using the payment daily, weekly.

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The ask is to design a bus stand for Tier-2 city passengers who are traveling from one city to another.


Scope

A bus stand is where buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers who are traveling from one city to another city.

Clarification

 Lets first set the objective of redesigning. Do we know why do we want to redesign the bus stand? An example would include we are experiencing a decline in the footprints, revenue, or we are hearing a lot of complaints about the experience of customers & we want to make it better in terms of services & experience. 

I’m assuming all of them & will consider it while designing it. Once the product will be tested we can implement it in other cities also.

User Group

I’m assuming all of them & will consider it while designing it. Once the product will be tested we can implement it in other cities also.

People in the age group of 10-60 years who frequently travel from buses.

  • Professional people who work in a different city.
  • Students of College/School study in a different city.

I am taking both of the user group as my users,as bus stand is a commonplace which is used by both of the user group majorly.

User pain points

 

  • Availability of fewer buses 

  • No safety for women on the bus stand 

  • Parking of vehicles is not available

  •  Scheduling of Bus timings is improper

  • Uncomfortably for passengers  due to high crowd gathering on bus stand

  • No seating arrangements and availability of hygienic food

  • Digital payments  are not accepted 


Possible Solution 

H, M, L denotes for High, Medium, Low

Y, N denotes for Yes, No


I have chosen 1,3,4 & 6 for the initial version of the product because it will increase user engagement and retention in the bus stand & also increase the revenue for the bus stand. The impact is calculated based on Revenue and Engagement.

 

#

Solution

Effort

Impact/Outcome

Mandatory

1

Users to be provided an app through which they can see the schedule of buses, book the tickets online and pay online digitally.

H

H

Y

2

Collaboration with Vendors to provide hygienic food and availability of Drinking water.

 

M

M

N

3

Acquiring land for parking services and work with parking agencies who can manage and maintain the parking space for the user. Users will pay for a per hour basis.

H

H

Y

4

Live customer support provided to the user through the app in their regional language.

L

H

Y

5

Collaborating with private bus companies to increase the number of buses.

M

M

N

6

Design an SOS on the app through which one tap call provided to the police station for the safety purposes of the user.

L

H

Y

 

Success Metrics
We can measure the success by

Activation - % users downloaded the app

Retention - % of users active daily on the app

Revenue - % of users booked tickets MOM through the app

Engagement-% users on the app checked the bus schedule

 

 

 

Summary

We have redesigned the bus stand by accessing through pain points of users. We came up with some solution which majorly came up through an app which digitalizes the bus stand in a better way. We have also defined some key metrics to measure our new Bus stand. Once this product became successful in one city, this can be the same replicated to other cities also.

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I thought the question was to design the bus stand not an app. Am I reading it incorrectly ?

Also what is a TIER 2 city in this context of bus stand ?

I assume these above question should be part of the clarification segment. If they mean bus stand itself, it is a whole different ball game.

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