P+R Platform.

P+R is a system that provides the user with cheaper parking costs. With this system you can park your car at a P+R parking spot, buy a parking ticket and continue your trip to location via public transport. When you are back at the location of your car, you "simply" go ahead and pay your parking ticket by inserting your public transport card which shows that you indeed have used the public transport system to go to Amsterdam central area and then you will be able to pay a reduced parking price. This project was in collaboration with "Vervoersregio Amsterdam".

Type.

Service Design, UX Research

Role.

Designer and researcher with
Kees van 't Klooster (Visual Designer)

Timeline.

6 months

Problem situation


In amstredam the costs of parking is at a highpoint and they costs continue to rise. Besides that, the parking space all over the city seems to be is scares or hard to find for the people in need of a parking spot.

Design Challenge.

“How can we design a solution that will guide the day trippers and commuters, to succesfully use P+R system, without them getting confused by how to use the P+R website and to pay the P+R costs".

Target group

Day trippers: people from outside Amsterdam that come visit the city for a day (shopping, family/friendl visit). Commuters: people that travel to work on a daily basis.

Stakeholders

Day trippers, commuters, Vervoersregio Amsterdam, GVB, Amsterdam municipality.

Conflict

The same P+R system has to be suitable for day trippers and commuters. How can we improve the same experience for frequent users versus infrequent users, without the system being cluttered or oversimplified.

Research.

In this project we started out researching our assinged metro stop. My metro stop location was Amsterdam Noord. Here I did observations, interviews and conducted a desk research to get insights. Later in the project I was grouped with Kees and his location: Amsterdam Zuid. We combined our insights and came up with a solution to improve the P+R system.

Read the research here (Dutch)

Insights.

Unclear route

The route/wayfinding from the P+R location to Amsterdam city central or other destinations is not clear for infrequent users (day trippers).

Transaction difficulties

For the day trippers it is most of the times unclear when in the journey the payment of the parking ticket will find place.

Purchase of a ticket

Everytime you park at a P+R spot, you have to buy a parking ticket. This occurrence can be a hassle, because it takes up time and the commuters also need to hold on to those tickes for their financial administration.

Feeling unsafe

The physical P+R payment devices on the P+R locations, can be placed at dark spots with or hidden spots. This causes an unsafe feeling when trying to pay the parking tickets at night.

Design solution.

A new and improved P+R platform that is also designed for mobile and therefore can be used for on the go.


The prototype

Features.

Route planning

To improve the wayfinding you are now able to directly plan your whole route on the platform. This way you can also see what P+R location is the best pick.

Route suggestions

The day trippers can get suggested routes. The target group explained to sometimes sort out their route at home, a day before the trip. This way they can get inspired to explore suggested.

Linked public transport card (OV)

Commuters now have the option to sign up for P+R so that they can link their public transport card and their vehicle registration plate to their own account. No need for a parking ticket anymore.

Automatic payment

If the user signed up for their P+R account, they can opt in for an automatic payment plan. This way they save up time and also keep track of their payment. The payments can be exported and makes it easier to share this infomation with the employer.

Challenges and limitations.

Within this project we did manage to include the users into the decision making of which design would be the best fit, however we did not conduct an in dept usability test to ensure the best user flow and user experience of the platform. This case was focused on the service and needs further testing after Vervoersregio Amsterdam would continue with this concept. Another limitation would be the linked transport card feature. For this feature to be included into the platform, there needs to be a collaboration with "Translink" the company that provides the cards. The collaboration needs to be ensured so that the link and the payment system can be accomplished.