Smart Parking Grid Pain/Gain Map

My elevator pitch was based off on idea I conceived over a year ago that I had never followed through with (mostly due to time restraints). Luckily a few classmates found it interesting enough to latch on and I am able to actually pursue the idea as a school project for now. My elevator pitch is as follows:

"For residents of Boston, who park downtown, have trouble finding metered parking spots, and frequently find themselves without change, the Smart Parking Grid is an infrastructure change to the city of Boston along with a mobile application that alerts residents where open parking spots are and allows them to pay meters with credit cards or bank accounts through their mobile phones instead of change. Unlike residents who live in cities with traditional, change-only parking meters, residents of Boston will experience an improved quality of life in that they will be able to easier find parking spots in the city and enjoy the convenience of paying with their mobile phones."

Before beginning my Pain/Gain Map, I discussed the potential customer segments with my group. We agreed on the following: college students who live in and around the city, employees who work in the city, the errand-running parent, parking enforcers, and out of towners (vacationers and traveling business people). Since I frequently find myself an "out of towner" in many other cities due to my work travel, I volunteered to tackle the out of towner customer segment.

To keep this post to a reasonable length for my audience, I decided to skip over the pre- and post-service periods and focus strictly on the service period. I will preface this by stating that these are travelers who are renting a car, whether for business or pleasure. For simplicity, I broke out the few pains and gains in bullet form below:

Pain

• User's phone dies. In this case, the application would be useless and the person's meter may expire.
• User does not have mobile reception. Again, many features of the application would be useless as it is web-based. One feature that would still work is the timing feature that alerts the user when the meter will expire.
• User is in a meeting or busy while alerts are being sent. This could annoy the user or cause stress knowing their spot will expire.
• Users shows up to spot only to find their spot illegally being used by someone else. Perhaps a "Report Illegal Parking" function could be built in.

Gain

• User can reserve a spot near their destination and pay with the click of a button on their phone. This saves considerable time for travelers who are usually short on time.
• Users do not have to worry about not having change for meters in their rental cars. When out of town and renting a car, most never have change handy.
• Users will have a more positive experience during their trips to Boston. Dealing with the parking situation in a major city such as Boston diminishes the enjoyment of the visit for many.