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.