WSU parking ( Service) PDF

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Introduction The issue with parking at the Parramatta campus is that uni students aren’t able to obtain parking spots during normal days, and suffer more difficulty during exam periods; thus, many students are forced to park elsewhere like parking at the Parramatta North Campus. However, when driving to campus students have trouble finding spots and spend a long amount of time rotating around and around looking for spots and during the time searching they are most likely late to class or most importantly an exam. As these permits do not guarantee a parking spot. Due to the lack of parking capacity, students' expectations have been hindered as they are unable to find parking spots as well as the psychological cost of time. In addition to capacity issues, this is also an example of a gap in service quality, and has come about due to the knowledge gap of WSU management expectations of consumers needs and what is actually expected by students; and also the perceptions gap as the service that WSU is providing can't be properly determined due to the limitations in capacity. These gaps are all external gaps and thus convey the overall gap between students and WSU when it comes to the service of parking (Wardle 2018).

Research & Problem. The research was conducted by a survey and was completed by students from the WSU Parramatta campus. The conclusion of the research has found capacity constraints for parking spots at campuses creating a gap between what WSU students receive and what is actually delivered (Wardle 2018). According to the research, 70% of students have found that finding parking spots is difficult and 87.5% mostly spends around 10-30 minutes trying to find a spot (Appendix 2). Due to this, 80% of students are not satisfied with the parking at campuses as they are “Always full” and some suggest increasing the car park (Appendix). As a result, University students have now been using public transport to get to campus due to the difficulty of finding parking (Appendix 2).

We understand that WSU has tried to solve this problem by adding more parking spots but they are not permitted to have developed options due to significant heritage protection issues. Thus, this statement was made “WSU recognises the demand for parking at the Parramatta South campus exceeds the availability of parking bays. There’s significant heritage protection issues associated with Parramatta campus which restricts parking management and development options” (Western Sydney University 2020). Furthermore, this has ultimately hindered WSU

from being able to adjust their capacity to match demand by preventing the scheduling of renovation and maintenance during times of low demand (Wardle 2018). Batabyal & Nijkamp (2010) supports that increasing the capacity of the parking lot would be very costly to construct and to maintain. As this may interfere with students due to the construction which will cause massive traffic and delay around the campus.

The research suggests that there is an immense demand for more car park spots to meet the capacity needed however this isn’t a viable option as there are significant heritage protection issues. The next best option to amend this issue is to introduce a new parking policy. According to the research, the main issue is that Parramatta South doesn’t meet the capacity for the strong demand in parking spots offered to urgent students who need parking spots to make it in time for class, exams, library to study, etc. WSU students have expectations of a professional and comprehensive view which creates a sense of a university environment. Service delivery is affected due to the lack of capacity that is required to meet the student's demand (Wardle 2018). The inefficient use of parking permits doesn’t guarantee parking which is an issue to students who are in a hurry for the classes as well as their final exams. Based on the research, 100% of students have taken public transport or other forms of transportation due to the difficulty of finding parking at South Campus Parking(Appendix 2). This is due to 87.5% of students having to spend 10-30 mins to find parking and 12.5% had to spend over an hour to find a spot (Appendix 2).

Target Market Our target market are students that drive to the WSU. We aim to assist students with parking service experience making it convenient. Our survey captures users current emotions to the oncampus parking service. Thus, in order to illuminate a new perspective, there is a focus on user empathy perspective. We need to identify with users and perform them when making decisions about improving services that might be useful or useless to them (Quora Design 2018). Additionally, we created user personas to help us to understand their wants and needs as they are students who drive to the WSU campus. Within our surveys, WSU students stated that they’re unable to find parking spots during normal days as they spend more time finding parking spots at least 10- 30 minutes as it shown in (Appendix 3).

Ideation Stage

The solution that has been developed is to make an addition to the WSU app which allows students to check parking spots available on campus. There’ll be features which allow 24-hour

advance booking for parking spots, in order to ensure students are able to arrive and attend their classes on time. The booking will only be available for a maximum of two and a half hours. There will be a 15 minute grace period, which ensures that students who do not arrive to their booking are not causing issues of reservation on the system - allowing other students to also book a parking spot. Through the system, users will be able to view the amount of spots available. In addition, students are able to pay for their parking or purchase permits through the app.

Low-Fi Prototype

The low-fidelity prototype utilises sketches, which will scrutinise the idea of adding a ‘Parking’ function to the Western app. The sketch illustrates the layout and interaction that a user will have with the app on the ‘Parking’ feature. This idea was constructed on the basis of making the interaction between the mobile application and the user more convenient and efficient. A survey

will also be gathered in order to capture user response of current parking situations at Parramatta South Campus. Through testing with users, the ability to observe users and understand their perspective of the sketch will be gathered. This will allow an ease for both us and users to identify any issues or inefficiencies within utilisation, as well as contribute to the production of the high-fidelity prototype; thus, being essential for validating this idea (Arijit 2019). It’s imperative that the survey questions capture the issues and emotions, in order to generate a positive responsiveness with the service. The feedback obtained is imperative in implementing the prototype. Majority of the students asked, tested and surveyed were receptive to the idea; especially students who were studying a postgraduate and/or graduate degrees. The postgraduate and graduate students were more receptive as long as they were able to obtain a parking spot without any issues, as these students suffered the most issues in obtaining parking during busy periods of university, especially exam periods. With the familiarity many users have utilising the Western app, postgraduate and graduate students were concerned about implementing drastic changes, or overworking the mobile app; thus, damaging the existent familiarity many students already inherit. With this feedback, a brainstorm and revision was conducted in order to address concerns from students and users. In order to ensure the performance will meet user standards, the familiarity of the Western app with existing users must be untouched. This is achieved by conducting subtle changes to the app, as the familiarity of the Western app serves as an indicator that the user already considered the mobile application as proficient for use (McCoy, et al. 2013, pp. 215). The ‘Parking’ feature will be installed on the bottom feature bar of the app. This allows users to easily and efficiently find the parking feature among the home page, as well as not create significant changes to the app; thus, creating an absence of disruption of familiarity, in order to positively influence customer impression on the solution for the service (Wirtz & Lovelock 2018).

Hi-Fi Prototype

After revising the low-fi prototype, we made a formal design reflecting these changes, shown above. Students that were tested needed to understand the proposition delivered - especially postgraduate and graduate students - as their feedback ultimately shapes and validates the final product (Ogilvie & Liedtka 2011). The testing was completed by students who were studying postgraduate and/or graduate degrees by providing the students with early access to the ‘Parking’ feature within the Western app. Thus, this prototype early-access will allow us to gather more information based on the user's experience with the app. Testing was conducted through surveying and interviewing students, as well as presenting the idea to other students who are either aware of the service, or used the service.

The feedback provided by students were predominantly positive about the parking software within the Western application as they were able to use the software without any issues. They also believed that the ‘Parking’ feature was easy to navigate through. Although students still made minor criticism of the parking feature regarding its attractiveness. However, students studying postgraduate and graduate expressed their concerns about the software’s ability to perform when used by numerous students at the same time, especially during the post exam

periods. Furthermore regarding the exam periods, students have concerns over the availability of parking during this time, as well as the guaranteed reservation.

As the Western app was lacking the ability to perform during traffic periods, in order to combat this, the app's software capacity had to be increased for greater performance. This reassessment supports the validation of service quality and performance, as it is being compared to its previous state (Wardle 2018, pp. 71). To ensure the reservation system was being fulfilled, a parking officer who already often patrols the parking will have an extra task of ensuring the competency between the app and parking. Therefore, increasing the interaction between users and employees, as a method ensuring consistency of level of service provided (Wardle 2018, pp. 72). As the majority of concerns expressed are from undergoing postgraduate and graduate students, these users will be provided with a priority bypass. Thus, allowing access to parking reservations earlier than undergraduate students.

Final Proposition

Our finalised solution involves keeping the ‘Parking’ feature at the bottom of the bar, among other main features. We have decided to preserve this feature in this position as it would not disrupt the familiarity of the app. Furthermore, by implementing a parking permit payment method to the app, this will introduce a new sense of convenience. Students will not need to pay for a parking permit on Parramatta South Campus, rather they are able to make a payment through the app. In addition, implementing a parking spot reservation dramatically reduces the search time (Wang 2011). A reservation method decreases commotion and more time for students who don’t have parking to find other spots or find other means of transportation. Initially management at WSU expected that their parking slip permit system would meet user expectations. However the users of this system were not satisfied as seen in survey results (appendix survey). Thus, this improved system has been able to close the knowledge gap as customer expectations are being met, through management's understanding of the reality of their customer’s needs and expectations.

Reference list: Batabyal, A.A. & Nijkamp, P. 2010, "A probabilistic analysis of two university parking issues", The Annals of Regional Science, vol. 44, no. 1, pp. 111-120, Wang, H., 2011, “A Reservation-Based Smart Parking System.” digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1045&context=computerscidiss> pp. 12 [Accessed 8 October 2020]. Arijit, 2019. The Fidelity Dilemma Of Usability Analysis. [Accessed 9 October 2020]. McCoy, S, Looiacono, E, Moody, G, Robin, C, 2013, The Effects of Website Familiarity on Website Quality and Intention to Use, Las Vegas. Western Sydney University 2018, The Service Enterprise 200915, 1st edn (custom edition ebook), comp. Wardle. K, Pearson Australia pp.67 pp.348 Ogilvie, T & Liedtke, J 2011, ‘Why design’, Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers’, Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 3-20. - Reference obtained from the video that Tristan sent us. I’ll find it later. Wirtz, J & Lovelock, C 2018, ‘Improving service quality and productivity’, Essentials of services marketing, 3rd edn, Pearson Education Limited, Harlow, Essex, pp. 446-489.

Armstrong, G, Adam, S, Denize, S, Volkov, M & Kotler, P 2018, ‘Creating and capturing customer value’, in Principles of marketing, 7th edn, Pearson Australia, Melbourne, VIC, pp. 235. https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781488624377/cfi/113!/4/[email protected]:47.1

Henry, (M) 2018, Quora design, User Empathy, viewed 29 September 2020, https://medium.com/quora-design/user-empathy-f995f1fde26d

Appendix A-1 ●

Why is Western Sydney University’s parking system out of date? –

WSU PARRA has a poor system. ● Why? –

The problem of students having large trouble parking and often having to use up a lot of their time to find a parking spot or having to park down the street. Permits are inconsistent. ● Why? – Too many people and not enough parking. You could spend 30 mins or less to find parking.

● Why? – Permits are a faulty and inconsistent system. ● Why? – Doesn’t take into account the normal student salary hence students will pay for the bare minimum (Annual General Yellow parking permit). This therefore creates an abundance of students and not enough parking spots to support that. (First in, first serve system. Thus, the system in place ultimately becomes irrelevant and additionally finally brings some consistency to the wsu parking.

A-2

Appendix 3

Undergraduate student

Postgraduate student

Graduate student

Emma Tyler

Lucas Mason

Alex Dominic

20 years old

23 years

old

26

years old

One-year student studying business

●

Third year post

●

Graduate student

marketing degree at

grad student who is

studying PHD of

Parramatta city

obtaining his

economics.

campus.

master’s in finance. ●

●

She drives to

●

He comes to the

campus three

campus two nights

times a week.

and two days in a week for class.

It is his final year of university as he has final exams.

●

It is hard for

●

her to catch public transport

parking four days a ●

Most of the time

early before his

just to get some

university times,

exams to find a

time to find a spot

so she uses

parking spot.

to park his car

WSU parking

before his class

service twice in

starts at 1 pm

a week.

however, sometimes he Before class,

cannot find a

she finds it

parking spot.

frustrating to

●

He’s getting increasingly annoyed for not finding enough spots to park his car on time during

find a parking spot to park her

week as he arrives

he arrives at 11pm

during her

●

He uses WSU

●

He doesn’t mind parking his car

car, so she

outside campus

parks her car in

during nights.

Westfield. ●

Doesn’t like when he does not find a spot to park his car during days.

his final exams....