Presentation
Subject:
The subject assigned to you on the page 'Subject'
Technological Module:
API was chosen to interact with individuals using transport
A: Exploratory Research
I. Hangzhou Public Bicycle
Project carriers:
The Hangzhou Government
Beneficiaries:
People that cycle in the cities to commute, to do exercices or just to have fun. It also generates positive externalities, considering less fuel will be consumed and, as a consequence, the air quality might improve and more people chosing bikes instead of cara decrease the number of traffic jams.
Users:
Bike users.
Need:
The project answers the public need of a bike-sharing system to integrate the public transport network.
Principles:
The bike is virtually free, considering the first hour is free and the user can just check in and check out again to renew the hour.
Main technologies envolved:
There's an app (called Palm Hangzhou) that shows how many bikes are in each station.
Sources:
Article published on the 2011 Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting
II. Blablacar
Project carriers:
A private company.
Beneficiaries:
People travelling medium and long distances.
Users:
Those who have a car and are looking for someone to go with them as well as people who don’t have a car and want to travel.
Need:
The project answers to the need of travel in a low cost way and with the opportunity to meet new people.
Principles:
The project link people who are offering a place in their car to do a travel and people who demand it.
Main technologies envolved:
There is an app on the cell to connect users interested.
Sources:
III. Despatronados
Project carriers:
A food delivery cooperative in Brazil
Beneficiaries:
Directly, workers of food delivery and people that ask for food delivery are benefited. Considering the workers use maily bicycles, we can understand that there will be incentives to the use of bikes, creating a more fluid traffic and diminishing traffic jams.
Users:
Workers of food delivery and people that ask for food delivery.
Need:
The cooperative wants to create a direct link between clients of restaurants that ask for delivery and workers of the delivery sector.
Principles:
The aim of the app is make the delivery cheaper for the customers and more profitable to the workers, considering the traditional companies of this sector won't require a payment to link customers and the workers of delivery.
Main technologies envolved:
There's an app that receives the information of customers requiring food and the workers that will deliver it from the restaurant to their house.
Sources:
IV. Moovit
Project carriers:
A private company
Beneficiaries:
People that will use more public transport to commute in the city. It may also generate positive externalities, considering less fuel will be consumed and, as a consequence, the air quality might improve.
Users:
Peope commuting in the city by bus.
Need:
The project aims to solve the incertainty of the best way and specially the best bus to take to arrive at the final destination.
Principles:
It allows users of public transport to see the best way to arrive at the final destination, including the time when the bus will pass.
Main technologies envolved:
They've developed an app that takes information of the person that wants to arrive at a certain destination and combines with the data allowed, being updated according to the feedback of users.
Sources:
B: Deepening
I. Hangzhou Public Bicycle
1. Carriers and actors of the project
The project is organized mainly by the Hangzhou Public Transport Corporation, although it also requires a responsibility from the users.
2. Research question
The project seems to understand bicycles as part of a social right, which is transportation. So because of that, the government of Hangzhou proposes a subsidised program to stimulate the use of bikes and the free transport in the city, allowing people to expand their destinations inside the city. The right to a public transportation that really allows people to go to places stimulates the use of parks, cultural centers, and visiting family and friends. It also generates benefits related to the citizen’s health, taking into consideration that riding a bicycle is a profitable physical activity and doesn’t pollute the air, in contrast to cars. Another important aspect is the integration of the bike system with the public transportation network, considering there are long distances that would take too much time just on the bike. The following image shows where are the bike stations in the city:
3. The reason this project was selected
Transportation in big cities is a really important subject, especially in third world countries. The high fare of public transportation impacts negatively on the places people visit in the city. Exemplifying this tendency, the main means of transport in the metropolitan region of Sao Paulo according to the familiar income is cars for the wealthy, buses for middle class and upper-poor and walking for the 20% poorest part of the population. It means that 20% of Sao Paulo’s population (about 4.2 million people) choses to walk instead of taking a bus and it’s probably related to its price. A free fare bicycle service in a city such as Sao Paulo, Delhi, Cairo, among others would allow people to go to more places and better enjoy the city.
User scenario
Users
Users are people who are in the city of Hangzhou and want to commute in the city. Users can be local citizens and tourist as well.
Persona
There are different types of persona interested in this project and the high number of bikes available (84.000) shows it. The present assignment will focus in one of the possibilities: - First name: Hàoyǔ - Age: 35 - Activity / Profession: History teacher - Place of residence: Suburbs of Hangzhou - Family status: Married - Income: RMB14.000 - List of hobbies and passions: He likes to swim and to travel to some cities not to far from Hangzhou, in the Eastern China - List of needs, desires, dreams: Hàoyǔ wants to do a PhD in History to better understand the relation between China and India during the XIX century. - List of problems and frustrations: He feels constrained to expose some specific perspectives of the History in his classes and he doesn’t want to talk to other teachers about it. He feels that the relationship among teachers is so professional and he’d like to have some friendships there. - Major issue related to the subject: The distance between his house and the train station is 2km and he spends just spends 7 min to go there because he uses the bike free service.
UX storyboard
Technical analysis
1. General principle
The user shares his location based on a GPS system and the app can show him the closest bikes based on data allowed by all the other users when they check in their bikes.
2. Technical overview - API version
The API is used in the app that shows the closest bicycle station and how many bikes are there. It locates the user by a GPS detector installed on the cellphone, consults the database to see how many bikes are in each station and shows the best possibilities to the user. There are some other projects that use these API, like apps to find the best bus route. The main data these API accesses is the location of the user, which can be allowed by the user or not. If the user doesn’t allow access to the location, the app can show him just the stations with the number of bikes in each one. The API is just activated when the user opens the app in his cellphone and demands the information related to the closest bike station. The user can also search for different locations and not just the closest one, filtering the information. The app retrieves information related to the location of the bike’s user when he checks in and checks out. This data allows the project to understand the demand for bikes and eventually expand its service to high required parts of the city. The API does’t appear directly to the user, considering the app just shows the final result of an internal search. Probably, the layout in the app is more readable for humans and, so, users don’t have direct access to the API.
3. Added value thanks to APIs
Thanks to API, users can easily see where they can find bikes close to them and also in different specific locations.