9A - Testing the Hypothesis, Part 2

Who:

·      Throughout my interviews, I found some people that fall outside of my market. These people have the RTS app and live in Gainesville, but use their scooter or car to get to campus and around Gainesville instead of the bus. I interviewed a student named Christian who is 22 years old, a girl who works on campus at the help desk named Carley, and a teacher at an elementary school. Christian and Carley both had similar answers to my questions and very similar stories. They both mentioned that they will sometimes use the bus on weekends to get to midtown, but that overall, they don’t use or rely on the RTS app to get them to a place on time. They just use their scooters instead, so neither of them have the need for a new RTS app. The teacher actually mentioned that she has the RTS app, but uses it only to help her 2 children who are in college get around when she’s not available. She stated that she has heard the RTS app is unreliable through her kids who use the bus, but has never experienced it for herself. Therefore, she doesn’t have the need.

·      My forth interview, was with a high school student. She is 17 years old and her name is Maddie. Maddie mentioned that she lives in Gainesville, doesn’t have a car, and needs to get to school and practice every day. I thought she was the perfect fit for the new RTS app, because she could be using the bus system to get where she needs to go. However, it turns out she carpools every day to practice and school with her friend. She also mentioned that she doesn’t know any high schoolers that take the RTS buses because their parents don’t think it’s a safe option. So, now many high schoolers in Gainesville don’t have the need for a new RTS app.

What:

·      The need for a reliable RTS app to get to places on time, differs than the need of someone who uses the app to catch a bus to midtown or to go party (for an unimportant reason). The need can differ depending on what someone is using the app for. My 5^th interview, was with a 21-year-old male, who goes out and parties every weekend. He said he uses the RTS app and takes the bus to midtown so that he doesn’t have to pay for an Uber. So, his need for a reliable RTS app, doesn’t exist because he doesn’t really care when the bus arrives, he just needs to take it. He has a different need than anyone I interviewed in my previous assignment, who need a reliable RTS app to get somewhere on time (like school or work) and really just for an actual purpose and responsibility.

Why:

·      The underlying cause of the outsider’s need is in fact different than people who are inside the boundary. The outsider may be using the bus system for fun and doesn’t care about getting places on time, because they don’t really have a time frame of when they need to get somewhere. While the insiders need is all about getting places on time and having a reliable RTS app to help them do so.

·      Sometimes, the outsiders need could be the same as the insiders need. For example, an outsider who has a scooter and takes it to school normally, has to take the bus one morning because their scooter wouldn’t start. In this case, the outsider, now has the insiders need of a reliable app because they need the bus to get them where they need to go.  

	Inside the boundary		Outside the boundary
Who is in:	Anyone who uses the RTS bus app. Including; College students, teachers, workers, patients traveling to the hospitals, families, etc.	Who is not:	People that don’t use the RTS app. Including: people with a parking pass on campus, people with working scooters, high school students.
What the need is:	-A reliable RTS app that works, refreshes, and gives users the right information. -An app that allows people who take the bus and are trying to get places ON TIME to do so.	What the need is not:	-People who use the RTS app to catch a bus to somewhere of no importance. Ex: to midtown so they don’t have to pay for an Uber.
Why the need exists:	-People need to get places on time, and the current RTS app has many problems. -Some students don’t own cars, a parking pass on campus is so expensive, and some people can’t afford a scooter, so they rely on the buses and the app to get them where they need to go. The app is unreliable, so they all end up being late and missing their buses.	Alternative explanations:	-People have bad time management skills and miss the bus. -People don’t pay their phone bill and loose cell service and “can’t refresh the app”

8A - Solving the Problem

As discussed in my previous assignments, the problem I am addressing is the unreliable RTS app and buses here in Gainesville. Students, teachers, workers, and anyone who uses the RTS app and the bus system to get around Gainesville have run into some serious problems with the app and the system itself. Some of these problems include; the app saying the wrong estimated time of arrival, saying “no prediction” or “out of service” instead of how many minutes away the bus is from your stop. Other problems include the bus randomly stopping and sitting still for 10+ minutes, bus drivers taking random breaks, Wi-Fi and cellular connection problems that causes the app to freeze, and so much more.

I want to create a reliable app, so that people don’t have to ever worry about being late. I don’t want people to have to wake up extra early or stress out while trying to catch a bus, and actually have a straight ride to their destination without any non-scheduled stops.

I have a few different ideas to try and solve these problems:

• A new and improved RTS app: this should and could be done right away. The app needs fixing and I believe if we get rid of the old app and create a new and improved one, we could solve some issues.
• Within this new app, more information will be provided.
• It will obviously still include everything the RTS app currently has.
• It will newly include all scheduled “breaks” the bus drivers will have on a weekly basis. This way students can plan ahead if they know their bus won’t be running for a certain amount of time during the day. This will hold the bus drivers accountable for any random stops they are currently taking.
• It will also include any traffic that may be on the roads, so you could be prepared. This can be done by using the same technique maps does. Red lines indicated stopped traffic, Yellow lines are for some traffic, and no color is all clear. This will allow users to see if traffic will be holding up the buses and if they need to get a head start on their day.
• This new app will also have a new system where if the bus is going to arrive sooner than expected it will automatically notify you of any changes. The app will have an estimated time of arrival, and if that arrival time is 3 minutes earlier or later than expected, the app will send you a notification every time. This way you are able to keep track of buses going faster or slower than expected.
• Better connection: technology is constantly changing and becoming more innovated. We need to update the technology of the app as well as inside the buses. Part of the problem could be that the buses aren’t transmitting the right data to the app, making the app send out false information, or saying the bus has no prediction or is out of service. Updated technology will also help with the freezing of the app when switching from Wi-Fi to LTE.

Overall, I want to have an app that is reliable, easy to use, and gives all the information one may need. I know for a fact that a new app will be a hit for many. I’ve talked to a lot of people about the app and everyone has the same opinion, that the app sucks and is unreliable. There are hundreds of people that use the RTS app daily and maybe more people would be willing to use the app and ride the buses if they knew there was a reliable app out there.

7A - Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

A reliable RTS app 

• Opportunity: 
• Every single day, students, teachers, and anyone living in Gainesville that may use the buses to get around are unable to rely on the RTS app to get them to where they need to go on time because the RTS app doesn’t tell them the correct time the bus will be arriving at their stop. 
• The who: Students, Teachers, and anyone living in Gainesville that may use the buses to get around.
• The what: They are unable to rely on the RTS app to get them to where they need to go in Gainesville on time.
• The why: The RTS app doesn’t tell you the correct time the bus will be arriving at your stop.

• Testing the Who: Not just people in Gainesville have this problem. The “who” is not limited to Gainesville residents, anyone needing to use the RTS app in their city to get around could have this problem.
• Testing the What: The people using the app could have bad time management and could be blaming the app on being late instead of blaming themselves. This isn’t too likely because the app messes up too many people. The bus drivers themselves could be taking unnecessary breaks, causing the time of arrival to be different than originally said.
• Testing the Why: Majority of people will have the “why” being that the RTS app doesn’t have the correct estimated time of arrival listed. So, people don’t really know when to be at their bus stop. Some people will say that the app has a technical problem and doesn’t refresh when the user goes from Wi-Fi to cellular. Others may say that the app says, “no prediction” for when the bus will arrive, to find out they waited too long and missed it. Some may even have a combination of all 3.
•   Interview #1:
• This interview was with a young Female college student using the RTS app every day to get to her classes on UF campus. While talking to her, I found that the app is wrong majority of the time she uses it. This student mentioned that she lives in an apartment complex and area in Gainesville that doesn’t have the best cell phone reception and Wi-Fi connection. She also stated, that she has personally been on a bus one time, when the driver decided to take an unannounced break and everyone on the bus just sat there while he walked away.
• Interview #2:
• This interview was with an older master’s student who lives on campus and takes the bus around the school. He mentioned that he has run into a few problems with the RTS app and the buses not coming on time, but that majority of the time things are just fine. While talking to him it was clear that the RTS app and the buses run very well throughout campus. He said there is always one on its way, and if he happens to miss it because he was running late, he knows there is one 5 minutes away.
• Interview #3:
• This interview was with a Junior in college named Brandon who is a student at UF and works at the help desk. Brandon said that he doesn’t take the bus all that often because he has a scooter now, but when he did, he always had to leave his place extra early to make sure he got to class on time. He mentioned that he lived far away, and that the “estimated time of arrival’ feature on the RTS app was almost NEVER right. He explained to me how the app will say the bus is 15 min away. He would think he has 15 minutes to get to the bus stop, but when he checks back in 5 minutes, the bus will say 2 minutes away. He would then miss the bus, because he thought he had 8 more minutes till it was arriving.
• Interview #4:
• This interview was with a Senior in college named Garrett. While talking to Garrett, he mentioned being late and or missing the bus a lot, as well as, the app never telling him the correct time the bus would be at his stop. The longer I talked to Garrett, it became clear that there was another reason he was always late and missing the buses. He has actually missed the bus a handful of times because he simply slept through his alarm, got ready to slow, or lost track of time and didn’t realize how late it was. Garrett mentioned that he has always had bad time management skills, and that maybe that has something to do with his bad experiences with the bus systems.
• Interview #5:
• This interview was with a serious student here at UF. She is a junior in college with a 4.0 GPA, lives off campus, and takes the bus every day to get to her classes. While talking to her and asking her questions about the RTS app and her experiences, it became clear that she had a strong hatred for the RTS app and the entire bus system. She then began to tell me all about how unreliable the whole system is, including the bus drivers, which I found very interesting. She explained to me that the app never tells her the right estimated time of arrival, or how it just randomly says there’s “no predictions” to when the bus will arrive, and even how the app freezes on her all the time. However, she said that none of these things bother her as much as when she has already caught the bus and is on her way to campus, and the bus driver decides to take a break and gets out of the bus and walks away. She said that when this happened she was never the only one on the bus and the driver wouldn’t even tell them his taking a break. She said this happened to her 4 times just this past spring and stressed her out beyond measures. She was actually late to class every single time this happened to her.  
• Given your interviews, what do you know about the opportunity that you didn’t know before?
• All 5 of the interviews gave me some new perspectives.
• Interview number 1, really made me realize that your Wi-Fi and cell services connection is very important in using the app. I had previously interviewed someone for assignment 4 who had said similar things, but now I have 2 solid interviews that have something to do with connection issues.
• I hadn’t gotten the information out of someone like I did with interview number 4. Garrett showed me that some people may just have a time management problem more than an RTS app usage problem. He was only one person, but maybe there are more about there.
•  I also learned that maybe this opportunity goes beyond just having a reliable RTS app. After interview number 5, it was clear that there are problems with the ENTIRE bussing system, including the RTS app. After this interview, I began to think about the actually busses themselves and their drivers. Maybe the drivers aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing? Meaning maybe they aren’t stopping at every stop, or are speeding and rushing, making the time of arrival speed up. I also thought about the fact that the buses themselves could be sending out the wrong information and location to the app, causing all of these problems.
•  I guess what has surprised me most about this whole process, is just how many people have had problems with the RTS app and the bus system. I got my interviews, by standing at some of the bus stops on campus, and everyone I interviewed has run into some sort of problem. You would think with so many people with problems, that something would be done to fix it, but nothing’s happening. I have also realized, the need for this change is extremely high. With so many people having problems and being late to work and classes somethings must be done and things must be fixed.