Sunday, October 14, 2012

GPS Bike System Rationale


The Product Services System I design is a GPS bike station located in all getaway accommodation locations throughout Australia. The intended markets are families with children, young couples, teenage groups, and backpackers.

For the first three targeted market, they usually go on accommodation during the long weekends, any other holidays such as semester break, school term break, or taking days off work. Their methods of travelling to the location are usually by driving or public transports. However, both these methods would produce a lot of pollution and it is best to minimise the use of these products and services. Also due to the cost of public transport and petrol are rapidly increasing, there is a need to have a cheaper way to travel.

Therefore, I introduced the GPS bike station, which it can produce zero carbon dioxide, and it is good exercise. So the GPS bike station would be located outside the visitor centre of all accommodation hot spots, such as Kiama, Blue Mountains, Byron Bay etc. which is very close if not, located to the city centre. These accommodation spots are small, which makes it easy to locate the stations, but there are more places to these area which people can explore. Therefore, having a bike would really help them explore these areas, and most the time, these places are in the mountains or close to cliffs where driving is not permitted. And it would take a very long walk to go to these places, which is very hard for families with children to go. And riding a bike has the benefit of interacting with the environment and gain a much deeper feeling with the surrounding, because if the people are driving in a car, they cannot stop anytime, anywhere to have a look at places. Whereas a bike can stop at any time, and the user can interact with the environment and not miss any part of the fun. There should not be much concern with the weather, as people would go on accommodation on nice weather and would not go out in a rainy day in the first place. The built in GPS is charged using solar power panel at the station, as well as the generator in the bike.

So the user can go online to reserve for a bike by entering their details, as well as go straight to the visitor centre and fill in credit card details, the user is then allocated a bike number and the user needs to unplug the bike to unlock it, and as the user ride the bike, the kinetic energy will be converted into charging power for the GPS, making the GPS last longer. Once the user is done with the bike, they return the bike back to the station and plug the charger back on, and it will notify the visitor centre, and charge the user by how long they used the bike. The GPS helps the user to go where they want, as well as for the visitor centre to locate the bike if the bike is lost or accidents happened.

8 comments:

  1. i like your posters and your design. i think it is good for holiday and excising purpose. however just remember that there are similar system on the market so make sure that your product gives them more of an incentive. and i think the bike station could be more interesting, now it is a bit dull

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  2. I think the GPS component would really enhance the trip, normally when we rent bikes it would be for relatively short trips but with the gps used i think its good, allowing people to explore and find recent destinations as they go. The fitness and exercise component is a good thing to emphasis on. I think the charging system may be rather excessive in reality, depending on the rate people use these i think its easier to save electricity by other means rather than trying to generate it yourself.

    good job

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  3. I think this idea is pretty good, this allows less petrol people use during holidays, especially when it's long weekends where people tend to go out for a small trip, highways and places are all packed with cars. By having these stations will allow families to have more time spending with each other and with the nature.
    Nice work ~!

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  4. I think your idea is very good. Because for people who like me will be happy to rent a bike to have a short trip on weekend, so they can avoid the heavy traffic on weekend and riding bike is also good for their health as well as the environment.

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  5. I really like your idea that use bikes to charge the gps, this will be very handy for tourists out there in small towns like kiama, they will not be affraid of getting lost out riding bikes because the gps runs out of battery. i think if the bike would not only charge the gps but also can charge your personal devices will be good.also, it seems there is not many parking spaces in the station, maybe a larger station with more bikes will be better.

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  6. This idea would be perfect for short trips around the place. Finding parking and the cost of petrol for cars is soaring through the roof so this design would be great. My only concern is the amount of bikes as they are only 4, it might run out quite quickly

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  7. i think your idea is very cool to encourage people to go out and get on the bikes. its not only good for the environment to use the GPS charged by the bikes but as well as encouraging them to exercise more as i think kids these days don't get enough of.

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  8. It is great idea for young as well for older people and anyone who is environmentally conscious. The placement of the charging station is well chosen, close to budget accommodation. The bike has GPS so it is very handy especially to tourists who are strangers to new places. I think the shape of the bike should be more aerodynamic; as a result, it will look lighter and more comfortable for biker. Summing up, it is good work and not bad design.

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