Designing With Web
Part 3 · Phase 1: Prototype

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Our group

• John GRUBER: link-to-part-2-assignment.glitch.me
• Mengke XU: link-to-part-2-assignment.glitch.me
• Xuchen HUANG: link-to-part-2-assignment.glitch.me
• Andrei KUCHMA: link-to-part-2-assignment.glitch.me
• Aidan ROSSI DE ARAUJO: link-to-part-2-assignment.glitch.me

Our subject

Our subject is Enable the development of soft mobility.
It comes from the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal number 3, which is entitled "Good health and well-being".

Our research question

The research question we have formulated together is "How to stimulate workers and students to use more bicycles/electric vehicles in the daily life?". The two projects ideas below try to answer that question.

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Project: EasyWay Long-term renting of bikes to students of universities

Context

The project can be applied in different contexts, but it is focused on cities and metropolitan regions, taking into consideration that bicycle is a mean of transportation specially used in short and medium distances. Apart from it, the long-term service allows the user to take the bicycle to different cities. Although the project is potentially useful in different countries, the current idea focuses on France.

The service is offered from the moment the user rents the bike till the restitution day, previously agreed.

Target + persona

The main target of the project are temporary residents of a city, which can be workers or students. The project focus on this profile because it includes people that will resist to buy definitely a mean of transportation considering that they aren’t permanent residents, but they’ll have a routine in the city and the bicycle can be a possible way to commute in the city. The low cost of bikes, comparing to other means of transportation, is another positive aspect to temporary residents, taking into consideration they don’t want to invest a huge sum of money in a temporary good.

Service offered

The long-term shared bicycle system based on a fixed place where people can rent bicycle for a long-term period. The user can book it to a specific period, according to personal neeeds. There are also different types of bicycle, including mountain bikes and speed, being electric or not.

The user is free to use the bicycle and there are some ways to avoid a misuse of it, such as a monthly general maintenance in the place where the bike was rented, an initial deposit to pay a new bike in the case the user does't return it till the agreed day (it will come back to the cycler when the bike's back on time) a GPS device installed in each bike to locate them.

Features + user flow

Features

• Feature 1 (key feature): Cycler rents a bike for a not short period of time;
• Feature 2: User can chose different types of bike, according to his/her needs;
• Feature 3: Locates the close places to take the bike and give it back;
• Feature 4: See recommendations and comments;
• Feature 5: Shows some mechanic workshops to fix when there are mechanical issues;
• Feature 6: Book it before arrives to select calmly the bike that better match with the user’s profile and supply station with the selected type of bike;
• Feature 7: Initial deposit to pay a new bike if it’s not returned after the agreed day;
• Feature 8: Identification of the user with ID, personal data and the payment card.

User flow

• Initial situation: A smartphone
• Step 1: Access from the University's app
  • Ex: BrightSpace
• Step 2: Create account
  • confirmation with University's student email adress
• Step 3: Landing on the homepage
  • tutorial to complete the profile
  • entering banking ID
  • filling in questionnaire for data
• Step 4: Come back to the home page
  • selection between the different kind of bikes
  • comparing the ups & downs of each bike
  • reviewing comments
  • booking the bike
• Step 5: Filling in the infomation to have the bike
  • payment
  • reserve a time to pick up the bike
• Step 6: Survey to rate the user experience & collect data
• Final situation: Job's done, the bike is on its way
  • exploring the other parts of the app:
    • Help
    • Q & A
    • Payment statement
    • Look for all the garages in the neighborhood

(Add a drawing of the user flow for the key feature here)

Illustrations

Benchmark

• EnCicla is a public bicycle renting service in Medellín, Colombia. It’s a public and free fare system connected with the public transportation network. The bikes are rented during the day and users must turn them back to one of the 101 stations spread in the city till 10PM. To rent a bicycle, one must first register online on EnCicla's official website.
• Vélo’v is a private sharing bicycle system in the metropolitan region of Lyon, including 424 stations spread in 18 cities. It’s possible to buy a ticket to use the bike once (€1,80), for 24 hours (€4) and for a year (€31 plus a restituable €150 of guarantee). Although this ticket is available to use during one year, the user has to bring the bicycle back to a station at maximum 30 min after take it and pays extra values to each extra minute.
• Capital Bikeshareis a private-public partnership to guarantee a bicycle-sharing system in the city of Washington D.C. In this case, all the 658 stations are owned by the government and the operation is conducted by the private company Motivate LLC. There are different ways of payment, according to how many minutes the user will be with the bike, but the replacement fee is $1200 in the case the user stays more than 24 hours with the bike.
• Hangzhou Public Bicycleis one of the biggest bicycle sharing systems, with more than 126.600 vehicles and 4.514 stations. It’s managed by the Hangzhou Public Transport Corporation and well-integrated to the public transport system. In accordance with the requirements of "market-oriented operation and public welfare services", the company focuses on promoting energy conservation and emission reduction, creating green transportation, adheres to scientific development and is committed to making it convenient for local citizens, Chineses from different regions and foreign tourists to use the bike, alleviating the "dilemma" of urban transportation.

References

• EnCicla: Sistema de Bicicletas Públicas del
• Vélo'v
• Capital Bikeshare: Metro DC's bikeshare service | Capital Bikeshare
• 杭州市公共自行车交通服务发展有限公司