Creating a citywide behavioural framework to make Mumbai’s new parking system adoptable for millions
The world’s most chaotic parking systems for 50L vehicles was being formalised for the first time. A behavioural experience toolkit was built to push Mumbai from default, decades-old, informal practices to an intentional, design-led system built for mass adoption.
COMPANY OVERVIEW
The newly formed Mumbai Parking Authority (MPA) had to bring order in one of the most complex cities of India with multiple mixed-used zones
MPA was running a pilot to work out the kinks of the new policy. The success of the rollout depended on building a solution that could scale across Mumbai's diversity while remaining intuitive, fair, and adoptable.
I conducted 50+ driver interviews and mapped the behavioural barriers to adoption, analysing motivations, pain points, triggers, and resistance patterns across Mumbai’s varied parker profiles (auto drivers, bus drivers, fleet owners, delivery riders, private car owners)
Drove alignment with cross-functional stakeholders (MPA teams, civic authorities, parking startup founders, tech teams, operators, transport partners) to ensure feasibility and alignment with the on-ground realities of the system
Led the creation the behavioural nudge strategy, borrowing from global best practices and applying behavioural science principles to Mumbai’s context.
Decoded cultural narratives of Mumbai by talking to journalists, residents, opinion leaders; and deep diving into the literature on the city, to shape a communication frame that citizens could relate to and trust
Developed the naming direction and the brand identity brief, translating insights and user needs into a clear design and communication foundation
OUTCOME
Designed a behavioural nudge toolkit personalised to 18 parker personas addressing the core adoption challenge by tailoring interventions across framing, communication, environmental cues, and interaction flows.
Created a communication frame for the new parking policy, rooted in Mumbai’s cultural identity to make the system feel familiar, trustworthy, and citizen-led. This accounted for the emotional buy-in of Mumbaikar
Built the proposed naming and brand direction that positioned MPA as a positive, reliable, and citizen-first civic service.
The pilot integrated the actionable experiences and was successfully rolled out in several administrative wards
THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE
MPA was battling the habit of illegal on-street parking that was built over decades. But an approach that set out to correct ‘problematic behaviors’ would meet immense resistance.
The policy needed to be centred around the user and decrease resistance to adoption through a positive parking experience
As Mumbai had multiple parker profiles, MPA needed to use behavioural design principles to personalise the benefits of its systems to each persona such that each of them are nudged into adopting the new system
MY ROLE
“Russell brought a human lens to the problem that built right onto how the different stakeholders respond to the parking aspect. He discovered and brought to light people's behaviours we were noticing but hadn’t fully articulated. This gave our decisions a sharper edge, a way to address different needs from a user perspectives and became a solid addition towards policy making.”
PRACHI MERCHANT
Lead Planner at Mumbai Parking Authority
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Write to me at saldanharussell@gmail.com