The Future of Transportation in Columbus, Ohio
In order to show clients what to expect on their safe ride, an unedited video from final performance testing is shown below, highlighting the AEV’s capabilities, such as stop adjustments (0:08) and emergency breaking (0:38), in flawless fashion.
Our Approach
According to the Mission Concept Review, the goal of our group is to design an advanced high energy vehicle that is capable of transporting people from Linden to Easton and Polaris. The AEV will travel suspended from a monorail. It will also be electrically powered. With our budget of $500,000 for an economically-deprived area, we will weigh the pros and cons of speed, reliability, cost, safety, and efficiently to create the best-suited AEV for this area.
Advantages of Our Design
While not as sleek, not as efficient, or not as fast as some of our competitors, our AEV prioritizes the safely of the rider, ensuring safe, comfortable, and reliable transportation to residents of Columbus while still maintaining acceptable energy costs and times.
Safety
Our AEV is differentiated from others due to its safety measures, ensuring it reaches it’s required destinations if it stops short or goes too far. Utilizing While loops and IF statements, our AEV stops where it needs to nearly every time. If the AEV falls short of a stop, a gentle thrust of power is produced until it reaches its required stop, seen primarily before the first gate. If the AEV comes too quickly into a stop and is likely to overshoot, the While loop is quickly engaged, triggering a powerful breaking thrust until the AEV comes to a complete stop no matter the speed. These two measures ensure the riders have a safe ride no matter the conditions.
Speed
In our better performance tests, our AEV took approximately 55 seconds to complete the goal at hand. This is slightly below the average time of 55.6 seconds. With further modification and slight adjustments to the current code, this time will decrease, providing faster transportation to those in need.
Cost
With the average total cost of testing being $570,300, Our AEV design came well below this with an average total cost of $542,550. With our cheap body design, a fixed cost, and moderate energy usage, we are very comparable to competitors. With further refinement, energy costs will go down, meaning a lower total cost, possibly achieving runs under the $500,000 budget. These low costs translate to lower ticket prices, ensuring customers and riders get to their destination without emptying their pocketbooks.
Efficiency
With our AEV’s very simplistic design, repair costs and downtime can be minimized, increasing efficiency through increased run time. This, added to our safety measures to ensure no derailing or harsh coupling, will make maintenance on the AEV faster and easier. Looking at energy efficiency, our AEV ranked competitively. Our average of 201.4 J for the entire test is slightly below the average of 209.6 J. With further enhancements, this energy cost will go down, lowering this value.
Our Focus Supported
Our primary method of supporting our advantage is through cost analysis and comparing our results to other competing companies. In summary,
- Aev Cost : About $146,000
- Average of all: $149,082
- 2.1% better than average
- Average of all: $149,082
- Running Cost: $396,550
- Average of all: $446,694
- 11.2% better than average
- Average of all: $446,694
- Total Cost: $542,550
- Average of all: $570,300
- 4.9% better than average
- 8.5% over budget
- Average of all: $570,300
Comparing to the class averages show our AEV performed marginally better. For the overture, we believe it can be justified with the added safety measures our division included which others did not. Seen in our final performance test code, our added precautions ensure a safe ride, every ride. With our low cost AEV, more vehicles can run on the same track and hypothetically lower maintenance costs. With further improvements, we believe total energy usage can decrease, making our final cost within budget. Additionally, from our Advanced R&D testing, we believe this is the most efficient AEV design using only provided parts, ensuring cost saving measures wherever possible.