How would you improve Uber for a football event?

Describe the Product
Uber is a ride sharing service. Users can use mobile/desktop apps to get pricing and timing information of services that they need. Once the request is placed, the ride arrives at the pre-agreed place and pick up with the estimated ride price as a part of the deal.
There are 3 main parties in an Uber ride - the rider, driver and the company Uber.
Clarify the Scope
What do you mean by improving Uber for football event ?
In what ways do you want to enhance the experience of ride for the RIDERs ? i.e Price, convenience with prearranged with ticket purchase, time of commute.
>>> YES
How about improvements for the benefit of the driver or the UBER company? You can consider them as well.
There are other parties here, including the city itself, sports handlers, ticket masters, etc.. I am going to have them in mind as well.
Negotiate a smaller scope
As part of this discussion, I will detail the RIDER (the party going to the game) --> OK
Choose the Goal
The goal is to provide a better experience for an Uber for personal/family rides to a football event .
List User Groups
1) Family of 4 or so.
Family is defined as a single pickup, and all of the members staying in one place.
2) Individuals (friends )
Group of people, either a single or multiple places to be picked up.
3) Single rider.
Select particular Group/s.
I will select the individuals (friends) user group for further details. This will be most complex of all three for logistics.
List User Needs
1) Want to do the least work for the arrangement for travel back and forth.
2) Want to arrive a given time, timely. (It is a complex problem and needs a number of sub tasks)
3) Logistics of getting people together to the event and after the event.
4) A good price.
Call out user pain points specifically if you can
1) Today, there is no package to buy along with ticket,so all of the arrangements need to be done manually.
2) In order to arrive on time, they have understand the traffic, weather, get pickup info from friends.
3) If all of them are place in a same area, getting them together at a location and being picked up by UBER.
4) Then traffic again.
Prioritize the user needs/painpoints
Order of Priority (IMPACT, COST of Implementation)
2) H, M
3) H, M similar to #2 but a different scenario
4) H, H --> This can be part of #2 problem also.
1) H, C -->> arrange uber option at the time of purchasing tickets.
List Product Ideas
1) Work with Ticket Master to add UBER ride option at the time of ticket purchase and have option to add addresses at the time or later.
2) Add synchronization of each person of the party as part of UBER application. This is for both before the event and after the event.
3) Change the driver assignment from fixed to Assigned to first in queue at the stadium. What I mean is, just like taxi, UBER can line up at the stadium. They will pick up the first group who is ready to board, instead of people waiting for UBER to be driven in. (Simplifying it for this discussion I understand there are some intricacies)
4) Work with city and stadium to get UBER stand and work with city for special lane for UBER out & to stadium at some cost.
Prioritize a solution(s)
Priority of features will be as following order (IMPACT, Effort)
#2 -- A solution, which can synchronize. H, M
#3 -- H, L
# 1 - H, L
# 4 - H, H
Describe the Selected Solution
This new solution can co-ordinate with the party of the rider when all parties are ready immediately dispatch the car. At all times, the application works in background factors from arrival time considering traffic, weather etc. Given the solution feeding riders from the queue of waiting car, one can leave as soon as its member are all there.
As a stretch goal, UBER should try to work with the city for getting priority lane/traffic assignments to manage time. (For a fee with city)
Define the success matrix
# Number of Uber rides signed.
# Survey results of Uber experience on service i.e Time saving, rider experience.
# Revenue increase pre-product and post product of this release
Summarize your answer
UBER is providing a solution which takes care of all aspects of ride including getting people together, saves time and also provide revenue to city in some cases. Now the people going to football event have less things to worry.

Renato Lochetti · Answer 2 · 2020-12-26T23:54:52+0000

If we think about specifics of events that can impact Uber's operations, in my opinition there is two big topics

1. There will be a lot o people ordering rides to one specific spot and, because of that, users could experince high traffic near the event place and drivers could have problems leaving the place after finising the ride

2. At the end of the event, we would have a lot of people ordering rides from the same place and this could 1. raise the fares and 2. lead to higer pickup times since there will be a lot more demand than would be supply (a shift from a healthy supply-demand marketplace to an unbalanced marketplace) which would cause pain to both drivers and users

Since, in my way of thinking, the problem in the second topic is higher than the problem in the first topic, I will continue trying to solve the second problem.

Ok, so, we are dealing with a unbalanced marketplace, because there will be a lot of users aking for riders from the same place at the same time (end of the football event). The solution would be try to diminish the spikes in demand or try to serve the same amount of users with higher supply and more organization, since we want to serve all users.

Fortunatelly, Uber has already implemented some solution in other kind of similar situation: Airports. Airports have, in a more controlled and smaller version, the kind of problem that we are talking about: a lot of people ordering rides at the same time in the same place.

So, we should try to develop the following ideias

1. Have fixed places where users can order a ride. A user has to go and order from these specific and marked locations. This helps the pickups to be more organized.

2. Implement "queues" for drivers and users. First to order, first to be served. In queue theory, the size of the queue impacts negativelly the time to be served. By implements virtual queues and by align expectations with the users, their experice would be way better than just the normal experience of waiting for a driver to accept the ride that we usually have on Uber. There will be a lot of users ordering rides, so the best we can is to align expectations with users.

3. Help users to get to the pickup spots in time. This would faster the pickup since when the driver shows up, the user will be already at the spot, waiting. Here, we also could inform the user with spot near the event has the smaller queue, which would help to have all spots with almost the same queue size.

4. Heavy communication for drivers: Drivers should appear and "check-in" into the area to enter the queue, if the driver does not accept one ride, she will be sent to the end of the queue.

Metrics

We would know if we have succeed by looking to these metrics:

1. Orders served. We want to have the majority of users orders served. To not serve a order would mean that this user will probably try other e-hailing app.

2. Time to pickup. Smaller, the best. Since normal pickup times usually are between 2 and 7 minutes, we would probably be happy if we could serve 3/4 of users in no more and 15~20 minutes.

3. No major incident reported in the area of the event.

Abhinav Chitre · Answer 3 · 2020-12-16T06:03:57+0000

My framework for answering this product improvement question.

Clarifying Questions

Are we looking at one specific day or series of events / matches? series of events.

Are we looking at improving the xperience for any specific user type ? upto you.

Are we looking at normal rides or shared rides from the home to venue and back? normal rides

Goal

Improve the experience for riders and drivers to increase the overall number of rides associated with the event.

User Types

Drivers

Riders

sports authorities

Event organizers

City Administration

We will look at only two sets of user types as mentioned in the question riders and drivers.

I will focus on these two sets of users since they are crucial to balance the supply and demand equation.

Painpoints

The people attending the event need to reach the event on time. - medium
The people attending may find an issue to get a cab due to increased demand of the event.- high
After the event, the venue exits may get overcrowded and it will become difficult for riders and drivers in such a chaos- high
Due to increased demand after the event, the riders may have to wait longer at the exits. - high
They may also find difficult in locating the riders and vice versa. - high
The people attending the event have to get down at the right entry points to make sure they have to walk less or else they will have to walk longer. - medium
The people attending the event may want to find places to eat before and after the event.- low

Solutions

1. Designated pickup points at the exit at every gate - drivers will enter the ride sharing lanes and riders will share OTP and board the next available car. People will stand in queues to avoid crowding and make it easier for people with private vehicles or others to walk. High impact low dev effort , operationally heavy

2. Cabbooking lane for users who do not have app installed - high impact low effort , operationally heavy

3. Alter the Demand - Supply matching and pricing to make cars available for people to reach the venue on time at the normal rates without surges. High impact high efforr operationally heavy

4. Integration with ticket booking apps to book or schedule a cab for the time of the event. - low impact high effort, operationally not heavy

5.Option to choose match and ticket details associated with event and book cab for the same time - automatically correct designation is selected with the right entry gate. Low impact medium effort

6.Scan the ticket to get promo offers for ticket holders while booking - get discounts , auto set destination , schedule/book cab - high impact medium effort , operationally heavy

Trade offs

Changing Demand Supply algorithm and surge pricing mechanisms would mean lot of dev effort and research

Integration with other apps would mean revenue sharing - not sure if it is feasible economically

Adding ticket details would be a little too much for the riders so scanning would be a better option.

I would prioritize based on impact vs effort - 1 2 3 and 6.

Metrics

Number of rides completed per event

Average rider wait time on the day of the event

Average rider wait time in queue

Number of ticket scans

User growth

Madhavi Jha · Answer 4 · 2022-04-01T00:06:49+0000

Clarifying question :

Are we trying to improve Uber Usage and thereby revenue? Interviewer - Yes

Assuming this is a single football event.

User persona - 1)Rider (solo rider; with family & friends) - Need timely and safe ride going and coming back from event

2) Cab Drivers might face congestion during event times

For this question,sincethe goal is to improve the usage we will focus on #1.

Painpoints for #1

1)Address ride shortage

2) Price Surge due to demand of rides. Impact -H

3)Pain locating uber ride - Impact -M

4)Delay caused by congestion leading to further shortage of rides. Impact -M

Here are some of solution we can explore to solve above challenges

1) Have a dedicated parking spot for Uber rides. As the orders come in, direct customers to dedicated stalls.This will ensure that driver is available to minimize wait time for customers and also free up stalls timely. One of the trade off can be that customer arrives late so we should add note that wait time of greater than 5 mins will lead to automatic cancellation of ride and a new ride will be requested on their behalf (o max of 2 when a surcharge will be added for subsequent cancellation or no-show). This will avoid any hold up of spot and the ride is now ready for next available customer. Impact - M; Cost -M

2) If multiple single rider have requested drop off or pick up from nearby location, prompt discount code of x% for ride share which encourages ability to serve multiple customer. This will help reduce ride shortage (thereby addressing price surge to some extent) and help with congestion as well. All the customers will be prompted to same stall. Suppose 2 of 3 rider agree to sharing then the shared riders get priority and a new ride is ordered for single rider. Impact- M;Cost -L

3) If the destination or pick is nearby, offer discount price on bikes to motivate users to use bike versus reserving car rides. Impact-M;Cost -L

4) Encourage more drivers to cater to football event by giving them extra charge to address price surge.Having more drivers will also make sure there is necessary supply to support event and avoid price surge. Impact -H;cost -M

5) In case, uber is not able to cater to the demand, offer discount on local taxi /cab fare. Impact-M;Cost-M

My prioritization framework would be to address ride shortage at priority so I would implement #4. #2 and #3 will help with reducing ride shortage and is low cost so would recommend implementing #4, #2 and #3.

It would be great to address and avoid chaos by having dedicated parking stalls but given that driverand rider can call and text each other to co-ordinate meeting point, I think having this isnot mandatory.

Lastly, if we do a great job addressing ride shortage then we do not need to worry about #5 but in case this happens, it will be great to offer discounted alternative rides.

Vishal Shah · Answer 5 · 2021-05-09T16:35:52+0000

Me to Interviewer (I): Football is "soccer" in other countries. While I think a global solution to Uber will work fine, my solution will be considering how things are in US. Also, we will be focusing on mobile since that's how Uber is mostly used. Also, may I assume that we are improving Uber for both, people wanting to head to bars to watch a football game and also people wanting to head to stadium to watch it in person? Also, I would focus on just any football game vs. Superbowl. Is this all fine?

I: Sure.

Me: Ok. Since I am not a football watcher let's see what else. quick q: Are we focused on certain aspects to improve upon? Do you have a specific user segment in mind? Are we trying to improve upon Uber's revenue, or customer experience or retaining customers to use more of Uber during Football even isntead of competitors?

I: You tell me.

Me: I would go with focusing on retention here since Uber is a mature stage product and given the compeitition it's important to retain customers instead of them using a compeititor's product.

Approach:

As a Lead PM, I usually find it helpful to think of who my users might be since that helps me figure out how they use the product and what troubles they may face or what additionally they may want. Then I am able to define solutions and typically I end up thinking of MVP while keeping in mind important, what will immediately help move the needle and other resource constraints. Can I take similar approach? Also, any constraints we should keep in mind?

I: No. Sounds like a sound approach.

User Segmentation:

Me: My users here are: 1)Family wanting to watch game together 2)Young people who don't have a family 3)Professionals going out as an outing with their team at work.

I would like to focus on #2 since that's where I can make the most impact considering majority of the pool is obtained from that segment. #3 is there but typically in my exp you prob would have max 100 people, if even and there aren't so many of those events scheduled overall. Also, for #1 as well, that's a rare event since families don't normally end up going out to a bar or to stadium ton of times a year.

User Journey:

1)I pick a day to watch and buy ticket or maybe I plan to head out with friends to a bar to watch the game.

2)On the day of game, near to the time, I try co-ordinating with freinds about times and such especially if we are going to a stadium. If meeting at bar, this happens, but it's more laxed since 1 could be early another could show up around half-time (that's me).

3)Seek for uber and can't find one in town easily.

4)Too much traffic especially if it's a bar near to the stadium or we are heading to the stadium.

This journey makes me realize pain points:

1)Co-ordination requires too much time

2)Difficulty finding uber rides or soemtimes realizing my maybe my friend stole the ride I could have gotten.

3)My fare keeps going up due to traffic so I feel like I spent so much money for just 3-4 miles.

I realize #1 is so much more important since if Uber can address that it will result in simplifying my life and will result in me not even looking at Lyft or other competitors. Uber first needs to address pain pionts at beginning of customer's life and selection to retain them for future.

I: Great! Let's roll.

Me: Give me a 5 min to think through solutions.

1a)App shuld let me make a group of friends for specific games. We can then also individually choose a bar that we want to go to and based on tally we would see what the pick is. By doing this, Uber will take away most of text messages and phoen conversations and make Uber be the central part of my user's life. At this point, Uber has effectively captured the business of my user. I realize this isn't Uber's core business but I think this ancellary feature could be a growth hormone for their core business. Near to the event, a day prior, Uber can blast out a route to all my friends and other Uber drivers. This way my friends and I have a driver assigned and the driver already has his scheduled planned out. This will solve #2 problem of finding it difficult to find a Uber especially if bar is near to the stadium or we are heading to stadium.

1b)Uber keeps track of what day of the month or what specific games I tend to go to (yes this means there will need to be an integration with NFL APIs). This way Uber can remind me that there is an upcoming game that I may enjoy based on my past trips. There is a likelihood that ther user will feel like Uber knows too much about him/her. But I thinkwe can resolve this buy having opt-out features and provding appropriate verbiage that info is only used to enhance experience and is not sold to other companies.

1c)Uber could use integration w/ FB to then suggest "you and your friends typcially go to 4 games and here are the bars that you tend to visit to watch a football game. Would you like for me to suggest a day to you and your friends and help you secure a driver to your location of choice?" Again, data privacy issues may be a concern here.

While if I spent time more, maybe I could come up with additional solutions but woud like to instead pick an MVP for now since sprint is starting up soon. I think #1 is more of an MVP since it's something that we can implement with ease (requires less of AI and is a low hanging fruit). It also, like I noted before, steps in by trying to help me ease out my trip planning. Uber is essntially a business to make my trips more efficient and easy. So in a way I am addressing Uber's business. IT will not only enhance my user's experience but will also help retain the user since his/her entire planning has had him/her be all focused on doing everythign on Uber.

Measure:

I would measure this over a QTR:

1) # of distinct user groups being created to plan out a trip

2) % of users using groups to plan trip ahead of time

3) % of trips that are planned ahead by using this feature vs. impromptu trips planned (I do not believe you will see sig % here considering many things to happen on the fly).

4) % of additional trips taken by distinct users compared to # of individual trips that same user had been taking before.

I would first consider #4 since that one addresses retention directly. I get to measure that if I as a user was using Uber x times before this feature was introduced, am I now using Uber more?

Conclusion:

I chose to focus on retention since Uber is a mature stage product so it's focus isn't necessarily new customer acqusition but more so combating competition and taking more of their customers. As I thought about this, I thought about retaining a customer by trying to help the customer with their trip planning way earlier than he/she starts looking for a ride. If Uber has been a central part since beginnig, Uber will retain the business.

Lokesh Kumar R · Answer 6 · 2021-04-30T18:15:06+0000

Clarifying Questions;

Is there a particular problem we are trying to address here by specifically improving for Football? We are focussing to solve the sudden misbalance in Supply-Demand.
There are different modes in which users travel using Uber, like normal or shared or something else. Of these are we considering one specific one? Yes, We are considering the Normal ones.So

With the above clarification, I'll jump onto discussing the answer.

First I'll list the possible user groups and then prioritize one form them. Secondly, I would like to list their pain points and choose one from them. With this selected pain point, I'll come up with solutions and at last would choose one as the proposed improvemet for Uber.

From the clarification, It is understandable that the goal is to improvise the expereice to users of Uber.

User Groups:

Group travelling in private vehicles(Their own vehicles)
Group Travelling in vehicles of Uber, Lyft
Solo travellers in vehicles of Uber
Drivers

Here I'm excluding the Event Executives, Security personnels as they don't tend to leave as soon as the match gets over.

Of these listed, I would like to choose Solo travellers as we are more focussed on Normal Cab bookings and the goal is to improve the balance in Supply-Demand.

Pain Points:

The time taken in between booking and pick-up is more than usual
Finding the car allotted for them in the crowd of uber poolers is difficult in the crowd
They might want to visit some other place during their return journey like Restaraunts. Finding a good place and reaching there time efficiently is an issue.
The whole exit points will be more of chaos.

Of these points the last one is more of the Event's Executives job and the 3rd one won't impact much in solving the Goal. Thus, I would like to prioritize the first two. These are more related as well as the most crucial ones to solve for Balance in Supply and Demand.

Solutions:

Having Collaborations with Ticket Booking Sites to book a cab right at the moment when tickets are booked. This gives us the necessary time to manage the resources at the day more efficiently.
Maintaining a Stall where queued users can come and get the next cab that comes to the picking point without any separate booking by the user at their end. Similar to Railway Stations and Airport scenario.
Having a set of pickup point at a walking distance where user can reach on their own. On booking the passengers will be notified of their pick-up point. SImilar platforms at a railway stations.

Of these 3 different solutions, I would like to prioritize 1st and last as these require a lot lesser effort and are more alligned with the presesnt working model.

Success Metrics:

# of rides booked beforehand through partnered sites

# of rides picked up at designated pick-up points

Avg Time for pick-up during these matches