Approach
The company identified a major market gap when it noticed that most of the UK’s 93,000 minibuses were highly under-utilised whilst millions of people live in Transport Poverty, where they struggle to access or afford transport.
Pronetix started developing a Local Hub app using the Drivernet core technology to mobilise community fleets outside their core duties and transport people in groups at a low cost.
The company was struggling with the app’s design due to the systems complexity and dissimilarities with the user base, particularly when compared to that of DriverNet.
Solution
To assist Pronetix with the design and development of the Local Hub platform, intensive research and investigations were conducted to understand and refine the userbase and the targeted business model.
Meetings with the Managing Director and developers identified that the functionalities
of various modules (including user registration, creating events by community partners, booking transport, and the payment system) were not explicitly articulated nor documented. Also, business process flows within and between modules were not mapped or documented.
The team at the University of Liverpool’s Management School worked on mapping basic business functionalities, developing the initial use case designs for different user scenarios, and designed the system’s UI/UX and wireframes, providing Pronetix Ltd with a rigorous high- level structure that shaped and accelerated the development of the platform.
Impact
The intervention helped Pronetix complete the designs in a timely manner, assisted in capitalising on the identified market gap and responded innovatively to the transport poverty problem. Furthermore, the product was successfully launched with Greene King and Torus housing and is ready for trials with a third client before its full market release.
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The team from University of Liverpool made an immediate impact with the experience to assess our business model and advise on how to develop the system accordingly, having great insight of existing DRT and MaaS business models.
Ant Chisnall, CEO
Their capacity to quickly identify the users needs was apparent as they quickly designed the end-to- end user experience and interface for the DriverNet Go mobile application, which has since been used as the blueprint for the passenger facing application.
