Inspiration
During weekends, enthusiastic hikers traveling to the countryside. Sometimes, when they finish their trip and about to head back from the ending point, they face a long queue from mini-bus stop. Some people end up waiting for 5 hours or taking a taxi, with a cost. Our team wishes to solve this problem.
What it does
It is an app allows hikers know the queuing situation and waiting time for the nearby bus stop in the countryside. Our instant data can help the travelers to make the right decision for their commute to home after the trip.
Diversion: Before the trip Suggest serval types of public transportation to the destination. The starting points for the trip in the countryside is no longer limiting to the nearest MTR station as suggested by most of the online resources. GetAway suggest a list of optimized bus routes offered by the transportation companies at users' convenience and save the lineup time by avoiding one specific bus stop that the majority have chosen.
Bus stop options: End of the trip When travelers are ready to leave and start planning their transportation directions to home, they can use GetAway to app inquire real-time queuing data and the comprehensive bus information in the vicinity. They have options to avoid the most crowded bus stop and choose an alternate route with a 15-minutes walk to a less crowded bus stop.
How we built it
- Generate location real-time data from the mobile phone.
- Analyze the data to estimate the approximate time for the queuing at each bus stop.
- Present the real-time bus stop data to users.
- Help the users to make their decision.
Challenges we ran into
- Figure out how to ensure the real-time GPS data is accurately presented.
- To ensure an up-to-date information, special arrangements and bus route amendment for Hong Kong bus services.
- Using data analytics to enhance the accuracy of the estimation and projection of the bus stop queuing jam information provided by GetAway.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
The time users saved is the value that GetAway offer. GetAway is here to solve users' frustration when they encounter a long queue in the countryside's nearby bus stop by providing information for their decision making.
What we've learned
We have realized the limitation about bus service in Hong Kong where the route may not cover some of the places and the bus schedule is not accurate. If we need to solve this situation, it is necessary to track the GPS location of the bus and provide api for developers to use. All we can do is to suggest our users to avoid some foreseeable traffic jam situations and change their plan as a divergence purpose of GetAway. Moreover, the GPS that enabled the users to use the app function is very significant for developers. As GetAway need to utilize the GPS location to locate how many users in one specific spot and provide the realtime information to other app users. That's why more users of an app can provide more accurate information and generate a better user experience.
What's next for GetAway
Stage 1: We plan to spend the first month to fine-tune the prototype (prototyping, iterating, testing). This should be consolidated with extensive user testing. Then we plan to spend 3 months to code the product and launch beta version on iOS and Android market.
Stage 2: We will start to promote it through social media advertisement and hiking communities in Hong Kong. By doing this, we will start to have real users using our product. We will then gather user feedback from them to continue improving the user experience.
Stage 3: When a mass numbers of users registered our platform, we have more data on hand and we are able to utilize those data to optimize users experience. For example, those reviews for the countryside spots help users to better understand the sight.
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