A progress report on developing bike sharing infrastructure in Vancouver.
Summary
We are working on developing a bike-sharing infrastructure in Vancouver. Our goal is to implement a network with 100 bikes and 10 stations located throughout downtown Vancouver mainly around sky-train stations and streets. Residents and visitors will have access to an easy, convenient and fun means of transportation. Bike2Go will be available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The station network will provide twice as many docking points as bicycles, assuring there will be a nearby dock for all users. Our fleet will include robust, practical, and stylish Vanhawk Valour smart bikes .We have complete 3 tasks as proposed.
Works Completed
Task 1:June -Conducting Market research.
We have conducted market research and studied current successful instances of our company in other cities around the world. Users can purchase 24 or 72-hour short-term memberships and receive ride codes to unlock a bicycle. Long-term memberships are ideal for Vancouver residents and can be purchased by the month or the year. Long-term members will receive a card key that can be inserted directly into the bike station to instantly unlock a bike to ride. Riders will pay increments for the total amount of time they have used the bike. After several test drives, and public surveys, we decided to purchase Vanhawks Valour bicycles as our product bicycles. Vanhawks is a Canadian company that manufactures the first carbon fiber smart bike. The Valour features Bluetooth 4.0, Gyroscope, Accelerometer, Magnetometer, and speed sensor, GPS Receiver, Mesh-network and LEDS etc.
TASK3: June -Building bike Station.
The Bike2Go executive team meets once a week to collaborate on the individual work completed throughout the week. We have communicated with the City of Vancouver to determine the processes involved in building bike stations on ten of downtown Vancouver’s busiest street corners. And we have already established a bike station at Dunbar Street.
Task 3: June– Request a purchase discount on Volour bikes.
We have contacted Vanhawks to request a purchase discount on 100 Valour bikes. They have accepted to sell each bike at 20% discount.
Work remaining.
At the moment what is just remaining is to obtain the government license and start the business .This is scheduled to be done in the next 4 weeks of this month. We have conducted the relevant authorities and the team is waiting their response. Users are required to enter their credit card information when they apply for a Bike2Go membership. The docking stations will keep a record of each bike that has been removed from the station, and who removed it. This control will keep a record of how long each rider has used the service, and discourage bike theft. Users will receive a bill at the end of each month requesting membership dues and rental fees.