Not your grandpa's smartphone?
Nov. 21st, 2011 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mbarkerWell, actually... one of the news reports this morning was about a new app for grandpa and grandma. It's from the bus company, out in the rural areas. And what it does is allow grandpa to easily make a reservation -- including the location -- for the new "healthy bus" service. Which is actually small vans, not buses, and some apparently are equipped for wheelchair service.
Reservation? Yes. The little van comes to your house (or other location) at the time you requested, and picks you up at your door. Up to five people, by the view of the app that they showed. And then it takes you to the location you specified -- shopping, hospital, there were a couple of other main choices, and I think you could type in an address, too.
Part of the trick here is that the bus company realized that especially for older folks, waiting at the bus stop really isn't very comfortable. And instead of partly (or completely) empty large buses running regular routes, the reservation service lets them run mostly full vans, which probably saves money. I know most of the prefectures here in Japan also have a kickback from the government to the bus service to provide transport for elderly, so this may also get some payoff out of that.
If I understood the discussion by the bus guy, they are considering expanding the service to regular customers, too, now that grandpa and grandma have shown that it works. They have a web version for people who don't have a phone with the app. And training so that grandpa and grandma can quickly learn to use the app. So adding other groups should be pretty easy.
Interesting way to use the communication capabilities of smart phones to let them provide better "customer-friendly" service, replacing the "load 'em up" and "regular routes" with smaller vans scheduled to meet the actual needs. Makes me wonder what other "factory" service approaches would benefit from the same kind of re-thinking and re-design.
Just a little information greases the skids...
Reservation? Yes. The little van comes to your house (or other location) at the time you requested, and picks you up at your door. Up to five people, by the view of the app that they showed. And then it takes you to the location you specified -- shopping, hospital, there were a couple of other main choices, and I think you could type in an address, too.
Part of the trick here is that the bus company realized that especially for older folks, waiting at the bus stop really isn't very comfortable. And instead of partly (or completely) empty large buses running regular routes, the reservation service lets them run mostly full vans, which probably saves money. I know most of the prefectures here in Japan also have a kickback from the government to the bus service to provide transport for elderly, so this may also get some payoff out of that.
If I understood the discussion by the bus guy, they are considering expanding the service to regular customers, too, now that grandpa and grandma have shown that it works. They have a web version for people who don't have a phone with the app. And training so that grandpa and grandma can quickly learn to use the app. So adding other groups should be pretty easy.
Interesting way to use the communication capabilities of smart phones to let them provide better "customer-friendly" service, replacing the "load 'em up" and "regular routes" with smaller vans scheduled to meet the actual needs. Makes me wonder what other "factory" service approaches would benefit from the same kind of re-thinking and re-design.
Just a little information greases the skids...
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Date: 2011-11-23 02:59 pm (UTC)On a different topic, there is apparently an application for parents to help them deal with grown children who have moved back in with them, and one for grandparents on how to interact with their grandchildren.
Whatever did we do before we had applications ordering us about?