Carpool is commonly practiced in Filipino culture, but so many questions arise when planning it

Who will drive? Who lives nearby? Who is coming? Do I know them? ‍

Adding to these, carpooling can be seen as a hassle in a university setting due to the need to match schedules. These extra efforts further hinder its widespread adoption. However, with the campus as a common destination, carpooling presents a great opportunity as there is a large pool of potential carpool users.

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In the university, the number of registered cars is potentially double the number of individuals

Students value convenience given their busy schedules, thus resorting to their own cars. With this mindset in the long run, the reliance on individual vehicles contributes to increased traffic congestion, higher transportation costs, and a larger carbon footprint.
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This issue calls for a change in their mindset and behavior, with the challenge being how to restructure the system to achieve this.

MAIN CHALLENGE

How might we reimagine the carpool system to be a more desirable transport option to solo car rides?

How do we attract sufficient people to actively choose carpooling?

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In assessing the current system, the carpool services are non-scalable and dependent on manual procedures

There were only 176 members who joined the carpool community despite an estimate of more than 10,000 students among the 5 college schools. Out of these members who joined, there were no successful pairings.
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It currently utilizes separate tools such as Google Sheets or Google Forms. A Facebook Group is used, but has limitations on its functionality since it mostly serves as a forum. If the number of carpoolers continually increases, which is the bigger goal, the admin will need to constantly do the manual work of matching locations and facilitating communication.

The lengthy process in applying for a carpool is paired with a lack of transparency.

• As a member, you wouldn’t know who you’ll suddenly be paired with and a lot of other members end up being inactive.
• Coordination with each other may be a challenge with the nature of interacting with unfamiliar students.
• The priority of matching is solely based on locations rather than schedules. For students, coordinating schedules is seen as a hassle and there is less time flexibility in carpooling.

Given the manual way of operating carpool services, how might we optimize the process to make managing the services more efficient?

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The lack of carpool demand alone affects the effectivity of the entire system

Fewer students joining means a smaller matching pool, decreasing the number of formed carpool groups. There is also lack of drivers who are willing to let others ride with them. Thus, it can be seen how this is a complex issue that needs to address its underlying root problems.
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Why is there a lack of carpoolers? I interviewed 20 students and surveyed 100 students simultaneously to investigate this issue further and discovered the following:

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Trust, comfort, and flexibility as important factors in carpooling

Beyond convenience and accessibility which are essential in all carpool systems, designing a university carpool system must consider student needs and the fact that they’ll be carpooling more long-term compared to ride-hailing apps.

Trust and comfort

Students must feel comfortable in sharing a ride with someone new as they are used to their personal space and comfort zone, and may also have social anxiety. It was mentioned that they would be more comfortable sharing a ride with a friend, classmate, or someone from their organization.

Flexibility

When asked regarding their carpool preferences, their biggest priority is having a similar weekly schedule. Furthermore, given their weekly schedules can constantly change due to extracurricular activities or cancellations, there must be a way to help students easily communicate these changes to their carpool group.

Motivation

With the lack of demand for carpooling, especially among drivers, there is a need to promote the benefits of carpooling and promote incentives for active participation. How do we design for a behavior change where users are continually motivated to carpool?

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With the overall goal of boosting carpooling adoption, pasabay! aims to improve carpool processes while increasing its awareness

Taking into account these needs and motivations, pasabay! is a social carpool app complemented by a social media campaign to promote the transition from solo rides to carpooling. It facilitates all its processes to make it more accessible convenient and flexible while integrating the social aspect to promote it as a means to connect with new people, create friendships, and build trust with one another. By framing carpooling in this way, students can start to see the benefits of choosing to carpool as it boosts its attractiveness and establish it as a more practical choice.

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Each design solution is tied to a goal to ensure it remains intentional and aligned with the whole experience we want for these students.

1. Promote carpool as a practical mode of mobility.

This highlights the purpose of the social media campaign to increase awareness and disseminate information more consistently, as it was previously discovered that a significant number of students had not considered carpool as an option before.

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2. Help students find the most compatible carpool partners to maximize convenience and ensure a comfortable and enjoyable carpool experience.

The matching system is based on the student’s location, schedule, and preferences.

Adding Flexibility: To increase carpool matches based on schedule, students do not necessarily have to stick to one carpool group for their entire week.

1. May have different carpool partners or groups for various days of the week.
2. May select whether they are searching for a trip to Ateneo, back home, or both.
3. May view their schedule compatibility with other individuals or groups through a visual representation, a side-by-side comparison of schedules and a projected group schedule.

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3. Facilitate seamless communication between students to ensure a smooth and coordinated carpool experience between parties.

Waiting time should be minimized to make carpool a hassle-free experience for students with busy students. This is evident not only through the availability of the chat feature but also through the comprehensive details provided in each request and carpool group, and the display of status updates and notifications. Furthermore, flexibility is prioritized through the system’s ability to help students communicate schedule changes in a structured manner.

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4. Establish trust and comfort between students and integrate the social aspect into the carpool experience.

The app is designed to become a more social experience with added personality in profiles, displayed carpool experiences, peer feedback, and the ability to directly chat with other students. The social media campaign complements this by framing carpooling in a social context, highlighting reasons why sharing rides can be enjoyable.

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5. Motivate students to carpool both intrinsically and extrinsically by showcasing its value while offering rewards or incentives.

Promoting its awareness is not enough; there must be ways to increase its desirability. The design extends beyond logistical processes to incorporate social aspects and gamification elements through profiles, goals, and rewards.

Students are recognized and rewarded for their carpool efforts through a set of goals with prompts. Adding praise and rewards encourages behavior change through positive reinforcement, making students actively choose to carpool. Aside from boosting retention, the goals guide new users in learning how to use the app and recognize its value.

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The ability to display achievements on their profile adds social recognition which could further motivate this carpool behavior. They get to share to others their accomplishments that match their values, making them feel more rewarded. Aside from this, it makes use of the IKEA effect, a cognitive bias where people place higher value on products and experiences they have created and placed an effort in (Interaction Design Foundation, n.d.). It provides a better sense of accomplishment, leading to increased competency.

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6. Boost the efficiency and scalability of managing carpool services.

Lastly, it aims to boost the efficiency and scalability of managing the carpool services. The DSWS Web App streamlines the administrative processes of the carpool services to accommodate a larger number of students and ensure a smooth process for all parties.

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Building on the usability and appeal of the designs

After 2 rounds of testing a total of 30 participants, the average usability score is 94.5 out of 100 based on the System Usability Scale, which falls under the Excellent category. However, there were still areas of improvement or opportunities for enhancing the experience.

1. Clearer visual cues and clearer copy across the app

For example, users particularly had a difficulty distinguishing carpool requests from other chats, which prompted me to add a designated tab for Carpool Requests and a chat label for it.

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2. Making access points to features more visible

Notifications and live pop ups were utilized to guide users in real-time, ensuring they stay informed about important updates and actions needed.

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3. Schedule flexibility is further improved

"What if my schedule changes last minute?"

This common question from users gave me the idea of integrating the schedule compatibility preview into both existing and potential carpool groups.

To give users more control, the process for making schedule changes was streamlined. Multiple access points were designed for changing one's schedule, which can now be found in the Profile, Carpool Groups, and Chat sections of the app.

Lastly, as carpooling is a shared activity, status updates are now shown to other members of the carpool group. This helps reduce delays, confusion, and the need for back-and-forth communication during the carpooling process.

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Impact

The app, paired with the social media campaign, lead to an increase in motivation to carpool and carpool registration.

Social Media Campaign

App

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Providing stakeholders with data and recommendations

Recommendations and research insights handed over to the Department of Student Welfare and Services (DSWS), Blue Mobility, Ateneo Institute of Sustainability (AIS), and the student government for the development of the carpool services and other mobility solutions in the university over the next years.

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Next Steps…

If I had more time and resources for this project, I would have done the following:

Motivate more drivers

While the campaign effectively encourages more students to consider carpooling, evidenced by the increase in registrations, there remains a need to strategize on attracting more drivers to join. Drivers must be given extra attention, as they play a crucial role in making the carpool services work.

Real-time performance and metrics

Studying intention vs. behavior — there was a lack of driver signups despite a high rating of motivation among drivers who answered the form. The specific rating for drivers’ motivation after experiencing the design intervention averaged 5.2 out of 6, yet there was only a few drivers who signed up. This may be due to the limitations of a prototype where it has not been used in a real setting. Another factor for this discrepancy could be that the academic year is nearing its end. Students have likely already finalized their schedules and transportation arrangements and may currently be occupied with their workload.

Expand functionality based on user research

Despite the positive feedback and high scores received by both sides of the app, there is still pending work to seamlessly integrate the app’s flows with the DSWS platform, including contracts. In addition, the app still has areas for improvement and opportunities identified after the two phases of testing. These will be prioritized based on their feasibility and the level of impact they have on users. This ensures that the selected improvements effectively address user needs, enhance the overall user experience, and consistently contribute to achieving the intervention’s objectives.

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Takeaways

1. Analyze behavioral insights beyond what was said in interviews and surveys. In my discovery research, multiple students mentioned that they are willing to carpool, but why aren’t they doing it yet? I had to dive deeper into the way they think and behave. Aside from this, there were interesting insights when looking at the patterns of my interviews.
2. Make workarounds with the limitations of the project. For example, multiple users mentioned that they wanted real-life incentives but it was not deemed feasible by the admin. Despite this, I had to brainstorm different ways on how to motivate them within the app.
3. Collaborate with different stakeholders to understand diverse perspectives on the problem. While the university students were my main target users, I was able to collect useful insights from other stakeholders, including the Department of Student Welfare and Services (DSWS) and the Ateneo Institute of Sustainability (AIS).