Why local government needs to start thinking like Uber

Please not another post about Uber and Digital Transformation….

Well no, not this time. Mainly because I don’t believe that Uber did transform digitally. In fact, they did not transform at all. And its less about the technology than it is about the process.

So why should local government look at Uber?

Well, what Uber has done is taken a process (hailing/booking a taxi) and made it more efficient. Let me explain.

Before Uber you mainly had a couple of options for getting a taxi. The most common was phoning the taxi office and asking to be picked up at a certain time. Once the booking had been made you had no contact with the taxi firm. As the booking time got nearer you started to listen out for cars, then you’d be peeking through the curtains and as the booking time passed you’d phone the taxi firm to be told that it’s just around the corner. The second option was to hail a taxi, to stand in the street and wave your arm, debating whether light on means for hire or if it is busy. Hoping it doesn’t rain and less taxis are available. Once you have hailed a taxi the inevitable conversation about can you stop at a convenient cash point would take place. For the driver, they would drive around looking for a fare, with no idea where the person waving at them wanted to go and hoping it was a good fare. This is where most local authority services are today using an inefficient legacy process.

What Uber has done is to give customers a more efficient way of hailing a cab. No more standing in the street waving that arm hoping that a free taxi sees you and stops. No more making sure that you have the correct money on you, without knowing what the fare was going to be. No more peeking through the curtains hoping the car door you heard is your ride.

Uber took that experience and gave you an app that hailed a ride as soon as you wanted one, it gives you tracking so you know when the Uber car is arriving, the registration number, the driver's name and the price. At the end of the journey the money is simply debited from your account, without you scrambling around for cash.

Uber has given us a much more efficient way of using taxis.

For Uber drivers, it also gives them a more efficient way of choosing jobs to take and knowing exactly where those jobs are without sitting in taxi ranks or driving around the streets hoping to be flagged down. Taxis hailed in this way also have very little choice on end destination and accept any fare that hops in the back.

So it’s all about having an app?

No, it is not about the app itself. It’s about the data. A buyer sends data to the app to say I am at this location, I would like to go to that location, you can see my profile and I’m willing to pay the fare calculated on screen. The app sends that data to available drivers (sellers) in the vicinity and they can choose to accept the fare or not. There is then a transfer of data back to the buyer saying I will pick you up, my name is x, my car registration is x, model is x and I am currently in this location, x minutes away from you. You can then track the car to your door. Once you have completed your journey you simply get out of the Uber and decide if you are going to tip through the app or not and you can add a star rating for the driver.

The actual efficiency that’s been enabled is the transfer of data between buyer and seller with no real human involvement to keep the buyer updated at all times and the seller to be able to apply for fares.

Uber have now replicated this experience with Uber Eats, where again it’s the efficient transfer of data to open up a marketplace of sellers that the buyer can choose form and then be updated at every step of the process.

Local government can learn a lot from Uber in how they have taken a very manual process, with little feedback into an exercise in data transfer through a marketplace app that joins a buyer and a seller together with no real intervention from Uber themselves.

For a local government, the buyer would be the resident and the seller the service department. How efficient have you made the services that you provide to both buyers and sellers? Have you looked at the data and how it is transferred through a process? Remember they have taken a manual data point, waving your arm, into a digital one. You don’t have to just think vehicles either, all services can be effectively looked at from a buyer and seller perspective. The Uber element is just the marketplace that allows that transfer of data to happen automatically and in real time. How many councils can offer an Uber like experience to bulky waste collection? Or green bin collection? How can social care or housing look at a similar model of efficient data transfer?

It’s time to stop thinking about software and think about data. Data is key to your services. How can you use data to better inform your residents giving them the efficiency that they desire? How can you use the data to give real time updates on progress? How can you use the data to open up a marketplace of options for your residents? There is still far too many manual processes involved in local government services. Even those with e-forms are often downloading and re-keying this information. Paper worksheets are still prevalent. Imagine every Uber driver having to go back to base to collect a job on a piece of paper before they set off? It would lead to huge inefficiencies and cost.

Connecting residents and services efficiently and with automation will help you deliver the best services that you can.

And remember, in this example, both buyer and seller are using their own devices, and happily so, to complete their tasks. Uber and just providing the means of connecting them to each other.

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