Pick and Park

About the Project

Students at Curtin University Bentley Campus are frustrated with the parking system. I was tasked to come with a digital design solution to help reduce the frustration and problem of parking on the Bentley Campus.

BACKGROUND

Curtin Unversity Bentley Campus has a large number of students. In a year, there are approximately 30,000 students that are studying onshore. In comparison, there are only 5,204 bays available for students, which are only a fifth of the total number of students. Although it is easy to say that the university has to provide more bays and that students have to take public transport, in reality, it is a difficult job to be done.

In 2013, Curtin University introduced a new parking system, replacing the previous student parking permit system. Students who are driving to uni are encouraged to sign up to Cell O Park in their orientation week. Cell O Park is a parking app used for tracking the length of stay for a vehicle and to pay for the fee. This has given more flexibility in paying for the fee as students only need to pay for the day they came to uni.

However, up until the day I graduated from university, there are a lot of unhappy users. The experience of parking at Curtin University is not satisfying.

Empathizing with the users

To empathize with users, we conducted some interviews with the users and gathered some data from Confession at Curtin (Facebook Group), student’s Guild magazine, as well as other social media platforms, such as Reddit.

“I don’t need an education if I’m being taxed $100 for parking in YELLOW every 30 dayZ (and on occasion I must say out of desperation, and the possibility of turning my car around and going home after looking for parking for 30miNUTES, parking in bLUE!) CELLOPARK you have some audacity telling me that my parking didn’t even go through after walking back to my car 5 hours too late.

Angry Regards,

A poor architecture student who hasn’t slept in 3 years”

- Confession at Curtin, Facebook Group

“Public transport isn’t exactly a viable option. It can often be late or very unreliable.”

“Taking bus to Curtin is 3x longer. ”

“It is cold to wait at the bus stop. When it rains, I will be wet, the bus stop does not have any shelter.”

While Curtin University has its own bus stop with 944 scheduled trips, getting to the university by bus is still an issue for the majority of students driving to Curtin. According to a recent survey by RAC in 2021, only 53% of regular public transport users believe that Perth buses are reliable. Furthermore, in an interview that was conducted with some university students, three out of five students complained that the time to travel is longer by at least 2x when they catch public transport.

IDENTIFYING PROBLEMS

We developed our primary persona, Ben, to collectively represent the group of users who are eager to get a car park at Curtin. Our persona had a frustrating thought of:

“I need to get a car park. Why everyone is driving?”

“I hate walking 15 mins from my car park to my class.”

As most users are aged between 15-25 years old, we feel that they are very busy and therefore, expect everything to happen immediately.

What does BEN need?

Ben needs a way to reserved a bay before his arrival at Curtin. A bay that is at a perfect location, both in terms of budget as well as location.

THE SOLUTION

An app that allows students to find a car park using the power of community. The

‘Pick and Park’ offers an extended functionality from Cell O Park. It offers a way to find a car park by connecting the ones that are leaving and the ones that are about to find a car park.