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#ApniCycle
Revamping the Chartered Cycles Service.
Inspite of covering every nook and corner of the city with over 100 docking stations, why does the chartered cycles of Bhopal have negligible users? What went wrong? Can we revamp this service and 'unlock' it's massive potential? Let's find out!
Group members - Swanand Wagh, Parth Kothari, Nikitha Chilukuri, Samruddhi Pahune.
A 5 week academic group project done in 2022 .
#ApniCycle
TEAM
Swanand Wagh, Parth Kothari, Samruddhi Pahune.
5 weeks academic project done in 2022
Interventions to Increase the active user base of Chartered Cycle Service.
Inspite of covering every nook and corner of the city with over 100 docking stations, why does the chartered cycles of Bhopal have negligible users? What went wrong? Can we revamp this service and 'unlock' it's massive potential? Let's find out!
OUR INTENT
Inspite of having one of the longest public
bike sharing systems in the country,
Chartered Cycles Bhopal 🚴 fails to attract users 😞. Why so? We wanted to understand, and design feasible interventions to encourage it's use 📈.
What is Chartered Cycle?
Chartered Cycles Bhopal is a completely automated Public Bike Sharing System launched in 2017 under a public-private partnership as a part of the Bhopal Smart city project.
The aim is to provide a sustainable and cheap last mile connectivity alternative while promoting the existing 'cycling culture' in the city.
3 KEY elements of the Chartered Service
The Cycle
The Dock
The Chartered App
Lets understand step by step, how the Cycle Service is availed!
Hover on each image to know more
1. Go to the Dock
2. Locate your destination
3. Download the App
4. Scan and Unlock
5. Enjoy Your Ride
6. Lock ,End and Pay
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Once done, lock the cycle, end the ride on the app and pay the fare. ( Approximately Rs 20 for an hour)
02.
Fairly simple to use, right? Then what's the PROBLEM ?
' Despite having more than 100 docks with a fleet of 500 cycles, since 2017, less than 3% of Bhopalis have used the service. Why ? We wanted to find out! '
Our key research objective was to find out the perception, general population of Bhopal had of the cycles and through multi-stakeholder interviews, understand the reasons why it is unable to attract customers.
Firstly, we conducted a survey in Bhopal.
An hybrid survey with a sample size of 78 told us that although most bhopalis are aware of the service, a majority havent used it due to a lack of service understanding.
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Extremely text heavy and confusing signages
Large advertising space with very little space for
service instructions
Dedicated Cycling track with little to no users.
Certain docks are undermaintained docks with heavy encroachments.
Missing instruction panel which mainly explains the service
Confusion about what to scan and how to scan.
Finally, we heard what users and Stakeholders said...
Our key research objective was to find out the perception, general population of Bhopal had of the cycles and through multi-stakeholder interviews,
1. User Interviews
WHAT WE HEARD MOST :
" If there is someone to explain the service it would be much better! "
🤯
2. Non User Interviews
WHAT WE HEARD MOST :
" Does anyone even use this service? We have only seen these cycles lying around. "
🚴🏻♂️
3. Stakeholders Interview
WHAT WE HEARD :
💸
" The cycles don't generate much income, most of it comes from the hoardings."
4. Youtube Videos Comments Analysis.
Quite a few users in our user interviews said they refer to Youtube to understand the service. Thus we did a youtube comments analysis to understand user's perception of the service.
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"At least today I got to know how to use the cycles"
" I saw the bikes, came to this video to understand how this system works "
"Do we have to return the bike at the original dock?"
Key Insights
01
Contributing very less to the service income, rental cycles have taken a backseat in a service focused on providing them, majorly compromising it's user experience
02
Lack of basic service understanding amongst the general population of the city majorly discourages them from using the service.
03
Lack of visibility of active users and
ill maintenance of infrastructure had led to a general notion that the 'service is currently dormant and unavailable
04
The authorities, having taken the users sense of understanding for granted has resulted in the service being semantically weak. ( weak user communication )
03.
Increasing the active user base is the KEY to solving most of the issues the Chartered Cycle service is facing today.
The root cause of most problems in the service is low active user base due to poor service understanding.
We can Increase the Active User Base by ...
Piquing User Curiosity 🙋♂️
How might we make users more curious about the service?
Getting more users 👥 to the dock
How might we get more users to the dock to make them more aware of service?
Increasing service understanding 😲
How might we increase the basic service understanding?
Time to Ideate!
Based on the 3 ways by which we could increase active user base, we further ideated various changes which could be done to the dock, the chartered app, the cycle design, etc.
Ideas based on the dock
Ideas based on the cycle
Miscelleneous ideation
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After evaluating based on the impact and feasiblity parameters, 6 ideas were further detailed out.
The solution we propose is a series of changes in the docks and a few additions to the service to increase the user base.
01.
Shop In The Dock - Adding a " Human " element"
What if we collaborate with Amul and popular food brands to set up shops near the docks? Food kiosks will not only attract people to the dock but the shopkeeper will add a human element to make people understand the service.
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Existing
Proposed
Bhaiyya, Can we take these cycles and leave them anywhere in the city?
Yes yes, you can keep it on any other stand around the city. Dont worry!
02.
Redesigning dock posters.
We gave the service a classic Bhopali voice and redesigned the posters to showcase its unique selling points while incorporating familiar Bhopali slangs like "Bhannat," Slangs which people would instantly relate to.
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3. Pop up info board
We redesigned the Information board space which was previously underused. Basic service instructions given along with a QR code directing the user to an app extension.
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4. App extension and Service Video
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The QR code leads to a web extension of the chartered app. The app extension contains a short 1 minute video to explain the basic service features and how to avail them.
5.
Advertisement on the cycle leaf.
Simple advertisement posters highlighting the affordability of the service. As the cycles move around the city, they further spread the USPs of the service.
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Existing Info Strip
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Redesigned Info Strip
6.
Back information Strip Redesign
A lesser text heavy more graphical info strip to explain the details of using the service.
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Info stip on the back of the cycle
The suggested interventions mainly focus on increasing user acquisition. Once the user base increases, the service will have to further evolve to increase user- retention.
02.
We chose a similar service from our college campus which was underused due to lack of understanding and tested our concepts
Now that we had detailed out a few concepts. we wanted to test it...
What makes the director's suggestion box service similar to Chartered Cycles?
The suggestion box in the is a way to reach to the college director to solve the problems that students face on campus. Students have seen it but aren't sure whether it really works or not.
Similar to the chartered cycle service, it is a service that has visibility but lacks in terms of service understanding.
Creating parallel interventions...
We designed posters and placed all over the campus. The position of the suggestion box was set right next to the Amul center in college with a QR code leading to a webpage.
A simple video and webpage to
enhance basic service understanding.
Testing Results
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45 People
A total of 45 people who came to the Amul kiosk walked up to the suggestion box.
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27 Scans
60% people walked towards the code and scanned it to understand the service. ( Getting users to the dock)
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13 Drafts
Out of the people who scanned, around 48% of them have availed the service provided
(Conversion rate)
01
The large QR code and the following video largely enhanced service understanding.
02
Placing the box beside the Amul
center gave it significantly more visibility thereby getting more users near the service who ultimately availed it.
03
Use of local student slangs generated interest among the students therefore leading to faster circulation of the message.
The designed changes in the service were shown to the Chartered cycles authorities, who gave a positive feedback and showed interest in implementation of certain elements like redesigned posters and service understanding video. Talks with the chartered authorities and NID are under way regarding actual implementation of the project.
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