Public transport payment for the near future
Designing a new feature for Citymapper
One simple solution for one complex problem
Citymapper is a free transit app centralized on making the life of urban travelers much easier by providing smart multimodal routes across 60+ cities around the globe. It uses open data and mobile technology to deliver tailored navigation, with options that can range from flatter routes (ideal for e-scooters) to sticking to main streets (if you want to avoid quiet neighborhoods). Under the slogan “Make cities more usable”, Citymapper surely provides a holistic view on your everyday mobility by having a user-centered design, a minimalistic approach, and a set of useful features that other itinerary routing apps like Google Maps or Apple Maps simply won’t serve you.
Planning even the smallest trips such as getting to your dentist appointment on time can be challenging if you’re not familiar with your destination. It escalates to a real hassle when you add more types of transport to the equation: different vehicles, different tickets, different payments. They all sum up to the struggle of moving around urban centers. As Citymapper states on their company website:
“Users want to get from A to B. They care mostly about time and price, and don’t necessarily always care how.”
If you’re in London, Citymapper Pass will take care of those arrangements for you with a one-for-all transport RFID integration card, that you can manage directly on your smartphone through your Citymapper account. If you’re in the other 59+ cities, this problem still lacks a solution.
A better understanding
After diving into user interviews, some topics came to light and were unpacked into the following mind map:
And it resulted in the POV (point-of-view) or problem-statement:
Paying for multiple types of public transport tickets is time-consuming and complex.
Not knowing how the system works can ultimately lead to being unable to get to your destination on time — or getting there at all. It can be because you were unaware of the additional cash only fee for that specific bus line. Maybe you’ll run in an endless queue to buy tickets at the subway station, even though you wasted all afternoon meticulously devising your route. Or maybe your city has stopped accepting bills or coins at the pandemic and you only have physical money in your pocket.
Many other reasons may emerge and can undermine your journey, but in this exercise, let’s tackle the payment experience. Security and other limitations won’t be taken into account, the idea here is to solve the challenge in a quick and user-friendly way.
Solve for one, extend to many
How can we make public transport payment faster and less complicated?
While pondering the right solution, the idea of creating a payment and wallet feature came out to be the best among others. It’s reliable, transparent, and trustworthy. It offers both on-site and remote payment possibilities. Just scan it with your phone and you’re set.
If you can afford fancy readers, you could also go the other way around and make the whole experience work automatically.
Mobile payment isn’t something new but QR Codes and other methods to make purchases are being highly adopted worldwide this year: over health concerns, fewer transactions are involving cash in many regions. The global state of pay report from Mastercard — a study that, during the pandemic, remotely surveyed 14,000 consumers who had access to a smartphone and a bank account in 14 countries — found out that 31% of respondents said they were making more contactless payments than before and 60% agreed contactless payments are a safer way to pay than with cash. Data from Statista shows that there will be a 28% increase in smartphone mobile payments global transaction values from 2019 until 2024.
With all this in mind, the process of sketching began and ended up being something like this:
A digital wallet keeps the complexity inside users’ smartphones, making a win-win for every player involved.
Benefits to users:
- Time saver
- Budget administration
- Payment history control
Benefits to the business:
- Cashflow
- Opportunity for partnerships with non-endemic brands/business
- New data sets of financial behavior
Benefits for public transport companies:
- Accountability
- Less paper consumption
Going simple
The result is a user journey to make one payment through QR Code scanning or a 4-digit token system. There is only half of the “Adding funds” journey since the challenge was all about paying.
Next Steps
- Add wallet funds to the “Home” screen.
- Include the name/line of the transport that is being paid for at the “Pay” screen.
- User flow: Pay for tickets in advance.
- Prototype and test.
Business opportunities
Send money to friends.
Buy other stuff with the wallet money.
Partner with private companies to manage employee transportation vouchers.
Thank you for reading this far, I hope you enjoyed it! If you appreciated this solution, like and subscribe to receive future updates on my work. Feel free to drop a comment below, I’d love to hear your opinion.
