Our Mission
There are many bicyclists at Ohio State and at other colleges and universities who have to navigate high vehicle and pedestrian traffic during their daily commutes. Our objective is to ease the difficulty of riding a bikes on campus during times of high traffic by creating a solution that meets bicyclist’s needs.
Business model
From the interviews, a potential solution to the problem of biking around campus can be solved by first creating an efficient route across campus. This route would need to be free of pedestrians and cars. The route needs to be safe and well maintained as well. Something that can fulfill all of these expected gains in a cross-campus bike path. If the planned route can fulfill all gains and get rid of a majority of the pains associated with biking, investors will help construct and fund the project.
Value Proposition
The solution would ideally be one that does not get rid of any of the perks of biking, and also helps alleviate or completely gets rid of some pains. A potential solution would help alleviate pedestrian traffic which would make biking safer and quicker. This would give more time for student bikers to do things more related to their education like studying while worrying less about the time it takes to get to class. It would also benefit the user if there were fewer elevation changes in their route to stop bikers from going uphill too much. If potential users are very keen to the solution, there is potential for investors to grant money or services to help make the idea become a reality. The value in such a solution would make the user experience better by making biking more enjoyable due to there being fewer obstacles in the way of their route to class.
Users
The users of a potential solution are people that ride bicycles on campus. There are about 5,000 bikers on the Columbus campus according to our previous research. But, in the future, it would be easy to add people who ride scooters or skateboards to the solution as well. Investors would look for a solution that increases the amount of users in order to increase potential profit.
Our Concept
Our solution is to create a bike path with that connects north and south campus. Some already existing sidewalks can be converted into parts of the path, and new sections can be also be built. (Concept shown below) This path will help bikers get to class quicker by offering a quicker route to their destination. This idea seems the most appealing since it relieves a lot of the pains associated with biking, and reinforces the gains. The cross campus bike path is extremely efficient and is a big time saver, as it provides a straight uninterrupted path between south campus and north campus.
Pains
a.Hard to ride on sidewalks or through intersections.
b.It is hard to find an open bike rack.Potholes on the road make riding dangerous
c.Weather sometimes does not permit the safe use of bicycles on campus
d.Potholes on the road make riding dangerous.
e.Taking longer routes is necessary to avoid traffic
Gains
a. A new solution provides more time to study and participate in activities due to faster travel times.
b. A new solution would give bikers a pedestrian free path.
c. A new solution makes travel safer for the biker due to fewer traffic hazards.
Prototype Vehicle Testing
Model
The team believes that a straight path would be the best route for bikers. There would be stops when the route crosses a road, or an occasional stop for pedestrians, which is shown in the map above with red circles. There is also a hill towards the north part of the south oval that will be taken into account during testing The long path would make the slope of the hill less steep due to it having more space to go uphill while the short path will have a much steeper hill. This would be the best route that helps students get to class because it cuts through the oval starting in a residential part of campus, and ending in an educational part of campus. Neither of these design can account for unexpected stops however, due to pedestrians or squirrels on the bike path. This would be something that the team could not test with the current PV setup.
Track Route
The route created will have some straightaways, a particularly long one when it cuts through the oval. For this reason, the team will use the straight track with no elevation changes for prototype testing. The route also has a few hills. There is a large one just south of the faculty club. Due to this, the team will also use the straight track with elevation changes. The route is 0.75 miles. There may be slight turns in the route but the curves are negligible enough to not use the loop tracks. The team will also ignore the S turn in Figure 1. The team will use 10 inches of both tracks to simulate the route. This makes the scale to be 1 inch = .075 miles
Results
The results of our testing were a resounding success. All of our defined requirements were met during the testing process.
Value
The path returns several benefits to the OSU community including increased cyclist safety and cyclist efficiency. In the long run this makes OSU a more desirable campus for students, increasing the university’s demand, and therefore its income. Our current plan does not have any method of generating revenue directly from cyclists, so this project and its upkeep would have to be entirely subsidized. One method of subsidy may be to use a portion of student tuition fees to cover the cost of the path.
Team Members
Alex – Marketing Lead:
Ian – Development Lead:
Noah – Personnel Lead:
We hope you found the information presented to be interesting and informative.