Redesign a patrol station.

Question

Redesign a patrol station.

Asked at Google over a year ago

905 views

Product Design category

Asked at

905 views

How to answer Product Design questions

Interview Guide

Top Product Design interview questions

How would you design a web search engine for children below 14 years old?36 answers | 42.9k views
Design a library for the future.25 answers | 23.5k views
How would you design a consumer application for a scooter sharing business?21 answers | 18.6k views
See Product Design PM Interview Questions

Invite members
Invite by email

Add another

i3igpete · Answer 1 · 2022-02-08T00:11:21+0000

Clarify this Google product design question:

A patrol station typically means one of three things: a city/municipal police station, a country police station, or a state/highway patrol station. Is there a particular use case that I should focus on? If not, the term "patrol station" typically refers to a state highway patrol station.

At a highway patrol station, there are a few different functions performed:

1. Storage of vehicles

2. Repair of vehicles

3. Storage of Equipment/Evidence

4. Small Traffic Court

5. Large Criminal Court

6. Booking and Temporary Jail

7. Misc. Clerical work

Since 6 and 7 are common to nearly all police stations, regardless of type, I will leave them out of this analysis. 5 is typically handled by a larger standalone court, so we can probably assume this is out of scope. This leaves 1-4, which affect typical day-to-day functions of a highway patrolman.

Next we should ask why a patrol station is being redesigned. Who is asking us to redesign the station?

There are several users of a police station:

1. Patrol officers

2. Detectives and Sergeants

3. Judges

4. Administrative - includes office workers, mechanics, janitorial

5. General Public

6. Suspects

Of the 6 typical users, Patrol officers and Detectives/Sergeants typically have the largest voice in the day-to-day operations. Therefore we will focus on them.

If we go through the typical day of a typical patrolman, it involves arriving in a personal vehicle, changing clothes, attending a watch meeting, daily patrol, debrief, training sessions, washing/changing, and departure. For Detectives, the patrol is largely the same, but investigation may or may not be in the building. In general, the time spent on patrol or actively investigating a crime is timeboxed, while the time outside is not. We will define our improvement as time efficiency.

Here are potential suggestionns to improve functions 1-4 from the perspective of the patrolman or detective. Ranking is S/M/L, (impact/effort)

1. Efficient vehicle storage, optimized rearragement of parking zones. (M/S)

2. More vehicle storage - more lots or parking garage (M/L)

3. Reduce vehicle downtime and turnover with expanded repair shop with improved tools and equipment. (L/M)

4. Improved cataloging software/procedures of equipment and evidence. Faster check-out and check-in. (L/S)

5. More courtrooms and more Judges on staff (S/M)

Based on the ranking, I would prioritize 4 and 1 options first, followed by 3. 2 and 5 are longer term items.

The primary success metric would be time waste. How much time is spent on police station grounds that is NOT part of a watch meeting, patrol, investigation, or training? This would likely be voluntary on the part of the officers/detectives, so a counter metric is how many officers do not fill out a time waste survery - they might feel it was a waste of resources.

Steven Huang · Answer 2 · 2022-01-24T16:47:26+0000

Clarification problems:

· Is there any specific business goal we want to achieve?

o Increase users -> Higher turnover, faster re-charging, accommodate electric car users

o Increase profits -> Smaller land use, increase sales at the convenience store

o Increase customer satisfaction -> ease of use on the equipment and service, customer return rate

· Are there any outside factors forcing us to make changes?

o Regulatory change -> environmental, land use, safety, etc

o Competition

Quickly make sure there are no constraints or specific goals in mind. If yes, then we have to drill down depending on the given goal

Business goals:

· Increase customer

· Increase profit

User journey:

· Drive to gas station -> park their car in front of the charging station -> entering their member ID or credit card and start charging –> end of charging -> drive away or purchase snacks in the convenience store

User segment:

· Private cars (80% of existing users) – Could have different willingness to pay due to the type of car a customer owns

· Business cars (15% of existing users) – Need a larger quantity of gas. Drivers typically are professional drivers who need breaks and re-charge

· Other(5% of existing users) – Car owners come to fill the air, car owners visit the convenience store

· Electrical car user – need an electric charger, assuming not served at this time

Use case

Use case	Covered Segment	Priority
As a user, it takes too much time to charge my car, and I might be late to work/it could lengthen my trips	Private/Business	P2
As a user, I hope I can purchase coffee or energy drink to keep me awake during my long trip	Private/Business	P2
As a user, I bumped into an issue when checking out very often	Private/Business/Others	P1
As a user, I need to key in my membership number or phone number to get discounts	Private/Business/Others	P2
As a user, I want the gas station to have a simple car maintenance service, so I can change oil or tire without visiting car mechanics	Private/Business/Others	P1
As a user, I hope to charge my car fast and quick in your station	Electrical	P3

Potential Solutions

Use case	Potential Solution	Cost to build	Priority
As a user, it takes too much time to charge my car, and I might be late to work/it could lengthen my trips	Develop a new pump to speed up the process	High	P2
As a user, I hope I can purchase coffee or energy drink to keep me awake during my long trip	Install quick-service beverage machine or vendor alongside the station	Med	P2
	Purchase the item on the checkout screen and take it away from the convenience store	Low	P2
As a user, I bumped into an issue when checking out very often	Use contactless/Apple Pay system	Med	P1
As a user, I need to key in my membership number or phone number to get discounts	Tag membership information along with the credit card	Low	P2
As a user, I want the gas station to have a simple car maintenance service, so I can change oil or tire without visiting car mechanics	Simple tools(screwdrivers… etc.) chained on the charging station	Low	P1
	Combine air charger with the charging station	Med
	Offer tires and replacement parts in the convenience store, and items can be checked out at the same time as customers check out for charging	Med

Success metrics:

· Time per charging

· Customer traffic per station

· Customer satisfaction

· New members sign up rate

· Visit per customer

· Revenue per visit

· LTV

chandra-singh · Answer 3 · 2022-02-10T03:14:02+0000

Clarifying the question:

Petrol station = petrol, diesel, not CNG ? - Yes

(CNG gas stations are usually separate due to safety reasons)

Petrol station is in the city or outside the city (on highway)? – In the city

User groups:

Office goers – travel everyday, short of time, look at one stop shop for fuel, air, vehicle checkups

Tourists – seek convenience, unware of city routes

Transporters – local A to B drops, price sensitive

Local refuelers – low consumption, seek convenience

Scope:

User group to focus on – Office goers – have high consumption. For in city petrol pump, they have high repeat usage

Mobile platform for any supported apps

Customer journey:

User decides/ discovers he needs a refuel -> Locates a petrol station on way to office -> Drives to the petrol pump -> Stands in queue -> Gets refueled - > Pays

Customer pain points:

Always skeptical of heading to A petrol station – not sure of queue size, not able to optimize for traffic and petrol pump queue
People jump queues – low piece of mind
Has to turn & keep a watch on the meter reading – inconvenient
Air station is closed, end up not getting air service of have to go to a paid one elsewhere
Paying is not convenient - Has to wait for operator to return card, taking cash in/ out from wallet

Prioritizing: basis #serverity of problem, Solvability

Always skeptical of heading to A petrol station – not sure of queue size, not able to optimize for traffic and petrol pump queue - High severity, Medium in solvability– P1
People jump queues – low piece of mind – Medium severity, High solvability– P2
Has to turn & keep a watch on the meter reading – inconvenient – Medium, High – P3
Air station is closed, end up not getting air service of have to go to a paid one elsewhere – Medium, High – P4
Paying is not convenient - Has to wait for operator to return card, taking cash in/ out from wallet – Medium, High – P5

Solutions:

Crowd sourced and image mapping based estimator of queue time, route traffic – High CX, High effort – P2
Auto assigning sequence number once you get to a queue – High CX, Low effort – P1
App based monitoring of fueling start, end amount – Medium CX, Medium effort – P3
Self operable air stations – multiple air fill points – Medium CX, Low effort – P4
Auto pay from card in app wallet on fuel completion – Medium CX, Medium cost – P5

Evaluation criteria for solutions: CX, effort

Detailed design :

Auto assigning sequence number once you get to a queue

· Auto identify vehicle at the time of entering queue
· Auto add vehicle to filling queue
· Calculate and display avg time to fuel
· Trigger refueling on the basis of queue only for the vehicle assigned
· Allow override with reason

KPIs

For auto assigning sequence number feature:

· #fills per day (before and after)
· #fills per day for different time bands (before and after)
· Avg. time to fill for a car (before and after)
· Avg. time to fill for a car for different time bands (before and after)
· #overides by reason