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The Jaywalking Case

Difficulty: Advanced

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Brain teaser Growth strategy Market entry Market sizing New product Operations strategy Profitability analysis Public sector

Case Prompt:

The Government of Spain has tasked the City of Barcelona to increase their revenue generated from the City.

Thus, in order to generate more revenue, the Local Government of Barcelona has engaged our firm to examine the viability of passing a new law imposing a fine on jaywalking violations.

How should we approach this?

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Sample Structure

1- Market Size and Revenue

a) Estimating the number of pedestrians in the city that jaywalk

b) Suggesting a reasonable price for the fine

2- Implementation

a) Discuss the different approaches to implement the law

b) Pros and Cons of different approaches

3- Capabilities and Risks

a) Identifying Risks

b) Alignment with Government's capabilities and agenda

Market Size and Revenue

Estimate the total potential revenue that the government can earn by imposing a fine for jaywalking in the city of Barcelona.

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Note for Interviewer

An excellent candidate should avoid the trap of estimating the number of traffic-lights. The candidate must recognise that the revenue driver here is NOT the number of traffic-lights but the number of jaywalkers.

An excellent candidate should identify the logical flow of steps from # pedestrian → # crossings → # red lights→ # jaywalking violations

Start with the population of Barcelona (2.5M)
Filter the population for people who are capable of walking independently, say ages 14 to 70 (75% of 2.5M)
Segment the remaining population into categories based on activity levels i.e. Highly Active, Moderately Active, Sedentary
For each segment, assume a certain number of times a person crosses a traffic-light (e.g. 10 traffic-lights a day for High, 5 traffic-lights a day for Moderate, 2 traffic-lights a day for Sedentary)
This gives the candidate the number of traffic-light crossings a day
Assume that the traffic-light will be green by default 50% of the time
For the time's when the traffic-light is red, assume a 50% chance that the pedestrian will jaywalk
This gives the number of jaywalking violations in a day
This should then be multiplied with 365 to yield an annual number of jaywalking violations
Lastly, the candidate should multiply this with an appropriate fine amount (say 30 euros) and estimate the total market value

Note for Interviewer

An excellent candidate may point out about the “probability of not being caught”. In this case, the interviewer should acknowledge that it is a great point which can be discussed in the following question of implementation

Implementation

How would you implement this? Explain the Pros and Cons for Human vs Technological solution

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Capabilities and Risks

What risks do you see associated by implementing this fine? Does this initiative match the capabilities of the government or help them with their agenda?

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Practice makes the difference

Practicing alone helps – with a partner it’s even better. Solve this case in a realistic mock interview.

Do you have questions on this case?

Ask our community and receive answers and tips directly from our experts.

The Jaywalking Case i

Case Prompt:

Sample Structure

Market Size and Revenue

Implementation

Capabilities and Risks

The Jaywalking Case