Alliance Link

Needs Assessment and Problem Identification

I worked with a design team of two Toyota team members and key stakeholders to research mobility challenges of employees in Alliance Texas. I interviewed HR and Transportation representatives of key employers (Amazon, Tech Data, UPS, etc.). Next, I interviewed DCTA and Trinity Metro to understand their current service model, ridership during working hours, and gaps within their service. My team and I launched a survey to capture information about employees: Where are people coming from? Where are they going? What is their current mode of transportation? What are their current transportation challenges? Lastly, we rode the public transportation system from Fort Worth to experience a typical day of employees and mapped the journey. Our qualitative and quantitative research showed that employees had a first/last mile transportation problem due to one bus stop within Alliance for each public transportation provider and transportation was one of the root causes of high employee turnover rate within Alliance.

Concept Generation and Design Verification

My team and I synthesized and presented our findings to Hillwood, DCTA, Trinity Metro, and Alliance employers. Below are the research findings:

• Employers have recruitment and retainment

  challenges (5-10% employees have transportation

  challenges)

• DCTA and Trinity Metro have one bus stop; low

  ridership (10,000 acre industrial park)

• Survey: About 7% of the survey participants did

  not have access to personal vehicles and relied

  on public transportation

• Using public transportation leads to long commute

  due to distance of bus stop from employer

  Through our research, it was evident that first/last mile transportation challenge needed to be addressed. We learned that DCTA and Trinity Metro’s transportation service could not be expanded due to limited funding. The various employers were interested in investing in transportation solutions, but the service had to be limited to their employees. Lastly, Hillwood Properties was interested in addressing the problem but couldn’t allocate funding. Therefore, I brainstormed potential solutions with these key stakeholders. We selected an on-demand shuttle system as the solution. I researched shuttle providers, app developers, and success metrics for transportation systems. Next, I engaged with MV Transportation and Spare Labs to iterate and refine our ideas. Spare Labs assisted us in visualizing our ideas by developing a prototype of the mobile app for the on-demand, dynamic shuttle system. MV Transportation designed the bus wrap. Lastly, we shared our concept and designs with Hillwood, DCTA, and Trinity Metro for their input and feedback. We were ready to implement our solution.

Implementation, Reflection and Evaluation, and Iteration

We launched a pilot to test the service model and gained feedback from end-users. We hit a roadblock: low ridership of the shuttle system. I implemented a root cause analysis to understand the reasons for low ridership. Through focus groups, I learned that key employers were not marketing the service and employees were not aware of this service. I collaborated with Hillwood to deploy a social media marketing campaign, HCK2 to design marketing flyers, and Curiosity to map the journey of users and improve the service. Through these initiatives and iterations of the service, I was able to support my team in increasing ridership by 15% per week, reduced commute time of individuals by 33 minutes, and developed a sustainability plan with key stakeholders to continue addressing mobility challenges of employees.