Using existing GPS devices on the vehicle, aiming to address the lack of transparency in the supply and demand in the domestic trucking industry
Mentors:
Vik Parth (Researcher - Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Anne Hudson (Researcher - Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Teammates:
Maharshi Solanki - IoT Engineer
Nisarg Shah - Software Engineer
Tushar Kukreja - User Research
My Role:
UX Designer
Product Strategist
Deliverables:
A UX mockup for both the stakeholders involved in the project through the navigable Adobe XD prototype.
Time Period:
January 2020 [6 Days - Full time]
@ MIT India Initiative 2020, Mumbai
Background
In India, domestic goods transportation is dominant through trucks in roadways (~65%), and the trucking sector is majorly unorganized.
Ideation
1. Potential Stakeholders in the Indian domestic goods transportation industry
2. Movement of goods and concerns
3. Truck drivers and their pain points
Problem Statement
As the truck owners are highly distributed and an average owner owns less than 5 trucks, the availability of the trucks isn't visible to the right stakeholders like Industries/ Contractors/ Agents at the required time.
Opportunity
The Indian government has mandated the use of certified GPS device - Automotive Industry Standard (AIS) 140 for all the OEM and aftermarket commercial and public utility vehicles. Every 2 years fitness certification test is to be done for the commercial vehicle and without the AIS-140 GPS tracking device, fitness certification won’t be provided for the vehicle.
As a standard, the AIS 140 device contains 4 digital & 2 analog ports, out of which 2 digital ports generally remain unused.
Current Process
Proposed Process
Proposed Solution
Physical Switch in Truck Driver's cabin
A physical switch added to the truck's dashboard will be connected to the existing AIS-140 GPS tracking device digital input port so that existing technology available in the truck is utilized.
In addition to the existing GPS data which is shared with the truck owner, the data from the digital input port (reg. availability of the truck) is also shared with the truck owner through this mobile app.
Purpose: When the driver switches it on, means he is ready to take a load, and only after that do we show that the truck is available for load, to the agents in that particular region.
Similar to Uber, the truck driver's preference is received from the switch and shared with the relevant stakeholders. But the catch here is, the truck owners are entitled to approve or reject the price considering the capital and operational costs. So, once the driver changes the preferance to accept loads, a bid notification is send to the truck owner when an agent sends a proposal. Truck owner can accept or reject based on the feasibility.
Truck Owners - Mobile Application UX Design
A. Integrations
First thing the truck owner needs to do is to integrate with all the OEM / vendor aplications so that the data can be streamed to fulfil the application's needs.
In the integrations page, truck owners can see all the authorized applications & will be able to give authorization for our application to interact with GPS Tracking application. In adidition, the failure of any integrations will be shown.
B. Integrations addition
When the truck owners are adding integration with GPS tracking application for the first time, they need to confirm on sharing the live data of all their vehicles and other parameters.
C. Orders
In the orders page, truck owners can see their truck locations & who all bidded for their trucks and what is the cost they are willing to pay. They can accept or reject the bid from here.
D. Vehicles & Drivers
In the vehicles & drivers page, the truck owners will be able to see the details of driver associated with concerned truck. This data is integrated in 2-way sync with the GPS tracking application.
Agents / Industries - Mobile Application UX Design
A. Home
For the agents and Industries all that matters is the availability of trucks to certain region / city. To cater that, In the home screen agents will see the trucks availability in their region, and the location will be updated every 1 hour to ensure privacy of the truckers.
B. Bidding
In the bidding page, agents will be able to provide details about the load and the cost of the load and bid it to the truck owner, which the truck owner can accept or deny.
C. Orders
In the pending orders page, agents will be able to check the status of their bid, and also the live location of the truck during the trip time.
D. Payments
In the payments screen, the agents will be able to send and confirm payment with the truck owners, and also to keep in track of payment history with truck owner.
Experience the UX Design?
Truck Owners App - Adobe XD Link (Redirects to Adobe site)
Agents / Industries App - Abode XD Link (Redirects to Adobe site)
Key value opportunities
Through this hardware software integrated solution built leveraging the government mandate, the transparency with the existing stakeholders and efficiency of working with small scale truck owners will increase rapidly.
Gallery
While I presented the solution to Mr. Sudhindra, Chief Design Officer - IBM
With Mobility Theme mentors and participants
Vlog of the field trip to the trucking hub in Mumbai, India. Video credits: Maharshi Solanki
#Transportation #IndianTrucking #Mobility #MITIndiaInitiative #Logistics