Creating a cohesive attendee transportation monitoring app and a route planning and monitoring tool for trail administrators
Our client runs event days where buses move people around a route of pubs and restaurants. Consumers need to have access to bus time timetables to schedule themselves throughout the day and the business needs to create and plan routes, monitoring issues on the day and manage the flow of people to avoid overcrowding and clogs in the system.
Interview stakeholders
Uncover current issues and to be solved with the digital ecosystem to solve
Facilitate usability testing for multiple applications
Design an app for consumers, enabling them to efficiently move along the route
Design an app for the business to create trails and schedule timetables
Enable the business to monitor live busses and the flow of people along the route
Create a mobile app for the business to use while on the route
Conversation and interviews with the stakeholders to uncover business and user needs
I interviewed multiple stakeholders in varied positions across the event business to uncover issues and opportunities for us to solve. The main opportunities uncovered were:
Often, pubs would become overcrowded, creating clogs in the system where multiple buses need to be quickly scheduled or moved from other parts of the route creating issues across the route
Buses often break down, get stuck in traffic or any number of real world issues. Administrators needed to quickly be able to reroute busses or add reserve buses to the route.
Users would often be inside the pubs not knowing a bus had arrived, creating delays and backlog along the route.
Attendee app onboarding encouraging notifications
On downloading the consumer app, users are given simple instructions, encouraging them to use the notification system to enable them to board buses efficiently.
Simple time tabling, keeping attendees in the know
Users are interested in two things throughout the day, the schedule enabling them to board the bus to the next pub which can be very dynamic throughout the day and transportation to their pickup point enabling them to get home safely at the end of the day.
Trail administrators: Route planning
The business partners with pubs in areas for each trail, I designed a desktop application enabling trail administrators to create routes for buses to follow, stopping at each pub on the way and create routes from drop off/pick up points enabling people to join and leave the trail.
Trail administrators: Bus scheduling
Prior to the event, trail administrators schedule multiple buses from across multiple pickup points to efficiently move around the trail, ensuring a smooth experience for their attendees. The system is designed to take into account the drivers mandatory break times, ensuring minimal human error when scheduling the route.
On the day of the event, trail administrators are able to view the live status of the route, quickly understanding where buses are and monitoring the flow of attendees around the route. People count in each pub is monitored, enabling administrators to send notifications to attendees in busy or overflowing pubs to move on to the next one.
They are also able to create sub-routes for buses, tackling issues which can occur throughout the day such as broken down busses and traffic problems.
Mobile for active field work
The interviews uncovered that trail administrators are often on the trail with the attendees, we therefore enabled the live monitoring system to be used on mobile, ensuring administrators have full control of the event, whether back at base or on the trail.
