Innovating the taxi industry
Introduction
The taxi industry plays a very important role in the South African community, transporting millions of passengers day in day out from homes to the workplace, from homes to school, for leisure and for business.
We are going to look at how this booming industry can be made better for its clientele since its facing a lot of criticism and competition
My Design process
I decided to use the Lean UX Design Thinking process.
1.Empathize: This is where I put myself in the user’s shoes, to help me understand their problems, using tools such as personas and job stories
2. Define: This is where their needs are identified and prioritized
3. Ideate: This is where I come up with solutions
4. Prototype: This is when the solution is created using hi-fi mock-ups and/or clickable prototypes
5. Validate: This is when the solution is tested on various users to see if it works, further improvements are done on the solution in order to get it to its optimum level of usability
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User Interview
User interviews assist me into getting a better understanding of what the user might be struggling with
Customers, taxi drivers and taxi owners were interviewed…
Customer: Mutshidzi-31 ( lives in Alexander-Admin Clerk at FCB)
•How often do you use taxis?
I use taxis almost everyday going to and from work
•Do you have other modes of transport that you use?
Yes, I also use Uber
•How much time do you spend from your home to your destination?
I spend 30–45 minutes a single trip
•How much do you spend on taxis a week/a month?
I spend R800 a month
•Do you think taxis are safe compared to buses and trains?
No, buses and trains are the safest modes of transport
•Do you think taxis should run 24 hours a day?
No, taxis shouldn’t run 24 hours, it won’t be safe
•If the driver is driving recklessly, are you able to voice lout your concerns?
No, taxi drivers are very rude
•Would you prefer paying by card or is the cash method fine?
I don’t mind cash, because we are paying small amounts
Customer: Naledi-32 (Lives in Orlando-Producer at Ochre Moving Pictures)
•How often do you use taxis?
I use taxis when I need to because I have a car
•Do you have other modes of transport that you use?
Yes, I drive, sometimes I use the Rea Vaya
•How much time do you spend from your home to your destination?
When there’s traffic, it takes an hour to get to work
•How much do you spend on taxis a week/a month?
I spend approximately R250 a week if I’m using taxis that whole week
•Do you think taxis are safe compared to buses and trains?
Hell NO!
•Do you think taxis should run 24 hours a day?
Yes, I think they should run 24 hours provided that there are securities in taxi ranks
•If the driver is driving recklessly, are you able to voice lout your concerns?
I do speak out, but I’ve had an incident where I spoke out and I was forced to get off, I asked for my money back and he gave me my money back. He was extremely rude
•Would you prefer paying by card or is the cash method fine?
The cash method is fine, except when it’s month end and people come with large amounts of money such as R200, it’s hard to make change for the taxi driver
Taxi driver-Sibusiso ( Pimville-Joburg CBD)
•What time does your day start?
My day starts at 4:00 in the weekdays and on weekends at about 6:00
•Do you have breaks in between?
Yes I take breaks while I wait for the taxi to fill up, those are my breaks
•Do you think it would be better if you had shifts?
No, there’s no need for shifts because I’m only busy in the mornings and evenings. During the day I’m not that busy so there’s no need for shifts
•How’s your relationship with your boss?
Yes, he’s a close family friend, he gave me my first break when I got to Joburg so we’ve got a good relationship
•Does he allow you to make extra cash on the side once you’ve given him the daily income?
Yes he does allow me to make extra cash once I’ve reached my daily target
•What’s your take on the rival taxi violence? Do you feel safe at work?
I don’t like taxi violence but when someone takers bread away from you then there’s nothing you can do
•Do you think your industry should be regulated so that you can be protected as an employee and enjoy employee benefits and rights?
Yes, it would be better because some bosses are very abusive
•Do you think your industry is ready for innovation since there’s innovative modes of transport such as Uber?
No, our industry is fine, we don’t have a problem, the government will ruin our industry
Taxi Owner-Bab’Mchunu
•How long have you been in the taxi industry for?
I started in the industry during the Apartheid Era in 1988
•How many hours a day do your drivers work for?
They work close to 15 hours a day, they start at 5:00 and finish at 21:00
•Do they get paid overtime?
No, but once they meet their daily target, the rest of the money they make becomes theirs
•Are you open to the idea of having your drivers working 24 hours a day?
Yes we do have that, however the way it works is that some drivers work in the day and the others a few hours in the night
•Since the implementation of BRT, Uber and Taxify, how has your business suffered?
BRT affected us badly but Uber and Taxify no they’re fine
•Do you check if your drivers have the correct licensing, if they don’t, do you make sure that they do?
Yes I do check because if the Metro cops take the taxi away for incorrect licensing, I need to bail the taxi out with R2000
•What measures do you think need to be put in place to stop the taxi violence?
Taxi violence won’t stop because everyone is greedy
•Are you open to the idea of having the industry to be regulated so that you can also enjoy government incentives?
Yes it would be a great so that we can also be protected, but the problem is that they would want us to be taxed
•Would you be open to the idea of having your industry partner with your suppliers such as Toyota so that you can get discounts when purchasing taxis? Are you also open to having your industry create its own vehicles?
Yes that would be great because if we get financing from the bank we end up paying a million for a Quantum
• Would you be open to the idea of having your industry be intergrated with other modes of transport such as the BRT?
The problem is that the BRT and trains are too cheap, they might take all our customers
•Where do you see your industry in the next 10 years?
I think the industry will be much better because it will be in the hands of the youth
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Personas
One of the personas that were created are based on the potential taxi customer. This persona was created with assumptions and not fully research-based. It is meant to guide my design decisions and priorities.
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Pain Points
Pain points are generally obstacles that prevent your users from finding solutions they need
He hates carrying cash everyday because he once lost his wallet in a taxi
He was once traveling in a taxi and he lost his wallet, that made him not want to carry cash anymore because he had to ask people in the taxi to help him with taxi fare so that he can get home
He doesn’t have transport when he knocks off late because taxis finish at a certain time
Sometimes he works night shift and that becomes a problem when he needs to go home, he ends up using Uber or Taxify and those modes of transport are too expensive because he lives about 40 KM away from work
He hates long queues when going to work, they waste time, especially in the morning when one is late for work
Long queues annoy him because that means he needs to leave the house an hour early because he knows that he might spend close to an hour waiting in the queue, Woodmead has very long queues because it seems like a lot of people coming from Soweto work in that area, especially the Sandton, Woodmead and Midrand area
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Customer journey
customer journey is the complete sum of experiences that customers go through when interacting with your company and brand.
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Ideate
Ideation is the process of generating ideas
I decided to use a process called “Game Storming” for the ideation.
- How it’s done
•Get everyone involved in a project into a boardroom or meeting space
•Hand everyone a box of stickies and a pencil
•Set a timer for 5 minutes and tell everyone they need to come up with 6 -8 ideas, they can write, draw, sketch or scribble… It doesn’t really matter
•At the end gather everyone one’s stickies and vote for the best idea.
•For the ideas not picked the idea owners need to try and convince the team why their idea needs to be voted for and a second vote will be done.
- The ideas chosen here will be the ones we will explore further
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Next Steps
These steps would include: Prototyping, user testing and iteration
Prototyping
A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from. The goal of a prototype is to prove whether the solution will work as expected. It will also be used for user-testing in order to validate the solution.
User Testing
The goal is to better understand how the real users interact with the solution and to improve the product based on the result. The primary purpose of a usability test is to improve a design. In a typical usability test, real users try to accomplish typical goals, or tasks, with a product under controlled conditions.
Re-iterate
This is when we take what we’ve learned from testing and amend the design. Following that, a new prototype is created and the process is begun all over again until we are satisfied that we’ve reached the best possible product for release to the market
In conclusion, the taxi industry in South Africa has been around for a very long time, a lot of families depend on it and I think if the government partnered with the industry, then it would be be better regulated and a lot of people might opt for taxis and leave their cars at home.
