Bikes at Massey
To create a shared bike system based at Massey for students and even the wider community to use to get around the city.
After the hypothetical survey ran for a couple of weeks, the team realised they would need to buy some bikes to start a fleet for the students and staff at Massey to actually try out. For funds the team turned to Pukeahu ki Tua's contestable fund to apply for funding. They got it!
The proposal There is both a need and a desire to introduce a fleet of bikes onto the Wellington campus. We propose to invest in two trial bikes (one standard bike and one electric assist) with helmets, racks and panniers for carrying items. The bikes will be piloted on the Wellington campus and will be available to hire for free from 7:00am to 8:00pm as they will be securely stored and managed at the Massey University Gym. We are seeking $5000 of seed funding for the initial trial of this project that aims to help students and staff to travel more efficiently, collect supplies and contribute to Massey University’s Carbon Management Plan. From the pilot evaluation, we will review the sustainability of the project, and hope to increase the fleet of the bikes and share lessons with other Massey campuses. The verdict The judges of the contestable fund agreed to fund Bikes at Massey for $5,000! Their comments about the project and how they want to see the money going towards the growth of the Massey bike fleet: This is an excellent pilot project — we would like to see a report at the end that talks about how this might be scaled across the University and how this would be funded. There was some concern that $5000 would be sufficient to act as a springboard for other funders to engage in this idea. Clearly stating how the 'hire fee' might help fund a larger project and be part of the business plan is essential. Next steps from here The Bikes @ Massey team meet on Friday last week to discuss how to allocate the funds to use and how to execute the judges feedback. Next steps:
0 Comments
Following their first survey the Bikes at Massey team has created plans to get students and staff to trace their hypothetical bike usage.
They'll be trailing gathering the data via a google form. Encouraged to keep the form open on their computer or phone, people will input their hypothetical bike use each time they need a bike. This is a new way of gathering feedback for the whole team and Campus Co-Lab — we are excited to see how successful it will be! The form will be sent out early on Monday morning to the 70 people who said they'd be interested in being kept in the loop. While our Creative Director, Marie, was in Christchurch for another project she checked out UCSA's bikes. She reports she was throughly impressed with the style of the bikes and got stepped through the process a student would go through to hire out a bike.
Main takeaways:
The Bikes at Massey team have been exploring different models of bike sharing in New Zealand. So far they have come across two models that could be adopted by Massey for the students:
1. UCSA borrow-a-bike With a fleet of 10 bikes the students' association at the University of Canterbury have a system to allow students come borrow bikes from them for the day until 5pm. The main takings from discussions with UCSA is:
2. Next bikes (bike sharing system, use in Christchurch & Auckland) This is a bike sharing system where there is scalability of technology for the system depending on the budget of the provider. The renting by the bike users would be done via Next bike app or phone centres, which will allow students to unlock bikes from certain locations on the campus. Main takings from Next Bike:
Next steps for Bikes at Massey Next the project participants will be sending out a survey to students in the first week of semester break to gather data on how will the bikes be used, what for, what height the riders will be, and if Massey students are interested in seeing this implemented on the campus. |
About the projectBike sharing systems are get more and more popular around the world. With the ease of apps people can rent bikes all over cities to get around. This project aims to provide something similar to these bike sharing models here, at Massey University Wellington. This will enable our staff and students to attend meetings or get supplies from the inner city faster. The only problem we foresee is Wellington's famous weather.
Archives
August 2017
Categories |