Assignment 4A - Forming an opportunity belief
My belief relies in how our current and out dated highway system operates in today's world. Especially when there is bumper to bumper traffic involved. Everyone has experienced this. Either on their way to the airport which results in them missing their flight. Showing up late to an important meeting, or just wanting to be home from a long days of work at the peak of 5:00 rush hour. What if we can mitigate this problem by implementing a completely separate lane on the side of highways that individuals can utilize for a certain fee? This could impact people from all ends of the spectrum. Including White collar and Blue collar workers, long distant travelers, and families traveling on vacation.
After interviewing my mother who is a poster child for the 5:00 PM rush hour being that she commutes from Orlando to Tampa 3 days a week. She couldn't tell me enough how much it upsets her when she is forced to sit in traffic after a long work day. It can almost be torture when she starts to get drowsy at the wheel and has to force herself to stay awake in bumper to bumper traffic
In addition, I also interviewed a good friend of mine who happened to work in trucking. He told me that traffic jams occur more often than you would think. They can even happen when someone is just simply changing a flat tire on the side of the road. In some instances, people can get so infuriated that they drive through the median which could result them ruining their car or getting an outstanding ticket.
Lastly, I interviewed my fathers friend who happened to work as a state trooper in Florida. He explained that there really is no simple answer to eradicate such a problem. Everything relies on the amount of space and available lanes for people to drive on to mitigate traffic. Also just human behavior in general. Sometimes people cannot help but bring their car to slower speed when they see an accident or scene, which results the next 10 cars behind them also slowing down.
After conducting my interviews, I learned that traffic on the highway system is a huge problem and annoyance that people have just learned to accept as a reality. I am most surprised why no one has ever tried to fix the problem before. I still believe this is an opportunity that could be fixed and capitalized on in the process. It would just have to be realistic in the sense that it would not cause more problems then it would attempt to fix.
I do believe feedback is crucial when an entrepreneur is currently contemplating a new opportunity or attempting to fix a problem. You must put yourself in the shoes of the customer to see if your idea would even fix the problem at hand. And if so, how much of the customer population would actually be interested in utilizing it? Of corse staying true to your creativity is also very important, but I do believe there is an equal trade off for considering the feedback of others in lieu of the original vision.
After interviewing my mother who is a poster child for the 5:00 PM rush hour being that she commutes from Orlando to Tampa 3 days a week. She couldn't tell me enough how much it upsets her when she is forced to sit in traffic after a long work day. It can almost be torture when she starts to get drowsy at the wheel and has to force herself to stay awake in bumper to bumper traffic
In addition, I also interviewed a good friend of mine who happened to work in trucking. He told me that traffic jams occur more often than you would think. They can even happen when someone is just simply changing a flat tire on the side of the road. In some instances, people can get so infuriated that they drive through the median which could result them ruining their car or getting an outstanding ticket.
Lastly, I interviewed my fathers friend who happened to work as a state trooper in Florida. He explained that there really is no simple answer to eradicate such a problem. Everything relies on the amount of space and available lanes for people to drive on to mitigate traffic. Also just human behavior in general. Sometimes people cannot help but bring their car to slower speed when they see an accident or scene, which results the next 10 cars behind them also slowing down.
After conducting my interviews, I learned that traffic on the highway system is a huge problem and annoyance that people have just learned to accept as a reality. I am most surprised why no one has ever tried to fix the problem before. I still believe this is an opportunity that could be fixed and capitalized on in the process. It would just have to be realistic in the sense that it would not cause more problems then it would attempt to fix.
I do believe feedback is crucial when an entrepreneur is currently contemplating a new opportunity or attempting to fix a problem. You must put yourself in the shoes of the customer to see if your idea would even fix the problem at hand. And if so, how much of the customer population would actually be interested in utilizing it? Of corse staying true to your creativity is also very important, but I do believe there is an equal trade off for considering the feedback of others in lieu of the original vision.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteI am from Chicago so I know very well how annoying traffic can be. Often times it is easier and faster to take the train, and stop at every city along the way rather than just driving during rush hour (which is almost double the amount of time). I think that highways need to expand and account for the fact that so many people drive, and not as many people carpool as much as the government would like.
Hi there Chris! Referring back to your first paragraph about a separate lane for travel, I wanted to say that the Florida turnpike system already has something similar to that. It is called the express lane and can be found on the Suncoast Highway going from north of Brooksville to Tampa. You get in the left lane and it becomes separated from the rest of the highway by thin barrier of posts. You use Sunpass to pay for the toll road but the express lane has no extra fee. It avoids being in the right lanes where people constantly have to navigate through the hoard of cars who are entering and leaving the highway every exit. There are solutions in other cities that don't necessarily have separated lanes, but specific lanes for people traveling with more than three passengers. I too believe that there is a huge unmet need to fix our traffic issues.
ReplyDeleteHi Chris, I definitely share your concern for fixing our highway system and car infrastructure. I think it's interesting you took the approach of modifying the existing roads instead of simply building more new highways or scaling up other forms of transportation such as trains or buses. Your suggestion about a separate lane reminds me of the current debate over separate bus lanes in Tampa. The city council is fighting over whether to designate a lane on roads for only the bus to travel quickly from stop to stop. I think it's a good idea but it wouldn't go very far to fix the issue since buses are underused in Tampa and most cities. I'm glad that Gainesville is a place where the buses are both popular and usable.
ReplyDelete