A geo location-based mass commuter activity counter, incentivising citizens to walk as part of their commute, offering rewards for use with local businesses. 
It helps public transportation providers to reduce overcrowding on their network during peak times.

Type
Service Design

Role
Research
Service Design
Facilitation

Duration
6 Months

Team
2 Service Designer

Visa is a global payments technology company connecting and enabling consumers, businesses, banks and governments to use digital currency in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. 

Visa supports private companies, public transport operators and technology enablers to deliver digital payments acceptance in the Urban Mobility sector, transforming the passenger experience for millions of people worldwide. 

In this self-directed project, we collaborated with the Visa Global Urban Mobility team of dedicated global strategists and regional implementation specialists to develop a concept to improve urban mobility.

The Challenge

Reducing overcrowding on the public transportation network in urban environments during peak hours.

The Final Concept

A geo location-based mass commuter activity counter, incentivising citizens to walk as part of their commute, offering rewards for use with local businesses. 
It helps public transportation providers to reduce overcrowding on their network during peak times.

The Approach

A remote Service Design project

Due to Covid-19 and its associated lockdown and safety measures, we had to quickly adapt to remote ways of working and collaborating in this project. This included rapidly developing remote facilitation skills using Miro and Zoom, running virtual discoveries, workshops, coming up with creative ways of prototyping urban mobility in times of lockdown and testing propositions and also having project tutorials with experts, local shops, potential users and our tutors. Working mainly across 3 different time zones - UK, Germany and South Korea - we had to establish new rituals and efficient ways of collaborating and communicating. In this project, we had the opportunity to collaborate and validate our proposition with some of the most senior experts at Visa such as the Global Head of Delivery - Urban Mobility. We have developed valuable creative and relational skills in running a project of such magnitude and have grown enormously as designers through these times of uncertainty.

The Problem

Overcrowding

Public transportation in urban environments is often overcrowded and congested during peak-hours as commuters travel to and from work.

As a result, this creates more discomfort and anxiety for passengers.

Demand Management

Transport providers are increasingly facing difficulties with their demand management, resulting in two peaks during a typical weekday.

The Opportunity

Active Transportation

London would benefit a lot from citizens walking just 20 minutes a day. Especially in health, £1.6 billion could be saved in NHS healthcare costs. Environmentally, 57kg of carbon could be saved per year. It would also help the local economy, knowing that people who walk spend 40% more in town centres than car drivers.

Target Group

We looked at different types of work commuters and segmented them by the following 3 parameters: Time-rich / Time-poor, More transport options / Fewer transport options, Price-sensitive / Less price-sensitive.
 We identified 8 different archetypes and prioritised those who are more time-rich as they are the ones who are more flexible so they could delay their arrival home, who have more transportation options because they would have the choice to walk or cycle and who are quite price-sensitive because they are the ones that would not take public transportation during peak times if it meant they could reduce their travel spending. 
Urban Moments is initially designed for professionals for whom the concept of getting home on time doesn’t exist. Also, for people who like to try new things and are always on the lookout for new places to explore.

The Final Concept

Value Exchange

Core Features

Step Count

In order to use Urban Moments, users would sign in using their existing account with their transport provider. This would enable the transport provider to get a better insight into citizens’ travel behaviours. As the user starts walking during peak-hours, the step count is automatically activated. The app then tracks and converts their steps into Urban Points all in real-time. This data is stored and processed by the transport provider. The user gets and an indication of how much time is left until the peak time ends. They also have the option to pause or stop their step count in case they don’t want to be tracked on a certain part of their commute. At the end of the peak time, the step count is automatically deactivated.
By clicking on “insights” the user can see their contribution towards a reduction in Co2 emissions, congestion and other factors.

Offers

On the recommendations page, users can filter offers based on their current location and available Urban Points to spend. 
Here they can access other users' reviews of the offers. Not only that but the system would automatically keep track of the number of steps taken to redeem an offer. This metric becomes another visual information for the user to get a sense of the quality of the service. After selecting an offer, the user receives a coupon. They can redeem the offer by showing the QR-code. 

Local Shop

Local shop owners fill in details of their offer and publish them on the platform to attract more customers. By using the scan function in the app local shops can validate coupons and then give out the offer. On the admin dashboard, local shops have an overview of their sales and details on redeemed offers. They can also access information about increases in revenue, new customers and repeat purchases.

Post-pandemic

Immediately after the current lockdown measures due to Covid-19, when people will no longer wear face masks or follow social distancing, public transportation will have less demand. People will be looking for safer ways to get around the city. However, driven by marketing and incentivisation activities due to revenue pressure, public transportation and ride-hailing services will see an increase in demand again. This would be the ideal time to launch “Urban Moments” and to embed it into existing commuting habits. Immediately after the lockdown, Urban Moments primarily works as a way for people who are walking or cycling anyway to get rewarded for such behaviour and to explore local shops in the city. Along with investments into the city infrastructure during and directly after the pandemic to keep post-pandemic pollution levels low, more people will be walking and cycling which will result in reduced demand for the public transportation network during peak-times, an improved passenger experience and healthier and happier citizens.


Who is it for?

Urban Moments is designed to be delivered to transport providers and cities to reduce overcrowding on the public transportation network during peak hours.

Summary

Urban Moments is a service, encouraging citizens to walk as part of their commute, while staying healthy and exploring local shops in the city. It helps public transportation providers to reduce overcrowding on their network during peak-times, mostly caused by commuters travelling to and from work.