We have first created a MindMap to gather our different ideas on the topic "reinforce car sharing experience for schools through social medias".
Then we definied our project, and tried to explain it on paper, before putting it on screen.
Ushas is the Hindu goddess of heaven and dawn. She stimulates life and sets the world in motion, exactly the aim of our project.
when? where? who? why?
Nowadays, students are more and more inclined to have a lot of activities, they also want to eat better than before (not pasta or ready-made meals). But this requires a minimum of means. So, many students have a job with their studies. According to the INSEE "if they did not work, the salaried students would have a higher probability of 43 points of succeeding their year”. Thus, a major item of expenditure, which it would be interesting to reduce in order to avoid the necessity of accumulating a job, is transportation. For long distances or holidays, solutions already exist, but what about daily journeys? If we look at higher education schools, they are many to be on the outskirts of big cities, in order to accommodate a growing number of students following higher education (10 times more than 50 years ago according to the French government). There is then a real need to revolutionize these journeys.
Are students then condemned to use public transport, often full and poorly organized? Or do they have to buy their own cars (and pollute more and more) to finally be free? Our answer is no. According to the newspaper Les Echos, "French people spend an average of 24 minutes every day on social networks, a quarter of their total time spent on the Internet", so this is a way for us to create a complete solution, with the aim of being easy to use from a smartphone, with a simple account on social networks, ensuring intuitive visibility. Our idea is to create a mix between what already exists (carsharing and carpooling) to create the “carshooling” service of tomorrow.
for whom?
We recall that our main target are the students, whether they have a car, or not, but want to save money, while using a more pleasant, less expensive, and more user-friendly way to make their short trips , mainly home to school. It is therefore important to target students with a car (they will be called the "owners"), those with a driver's license (they will be called the "drivers") and the others (they will be called the "sharers").
Our goal is to connect users who use their cars on a daily basis and others wishing to change modes of transport (no longer use public transport), but also those who own a car and do not want to leave it unused, but not wishing to leave it to an unknown person either.
what? how?
Our service offer is relatively simple, based on the assumption that some students use their cars to come to their school, and that on their way they are likely to be near the home of their classmates, we want to develop a relationship system. The finding is also that sometimes this car stays in the garage all day, while it could benefit some. Thus, instead of making the journey empty and all alone, the owner can then make new encounters, enjoy a more pleasant time, while dampening its path and saving grams of Co2. Similarly, the owner can make his car profitable, even when he is not using it.The depreciation can be done in several ways.
The first is a classic contribution to costs through a calculation of the cost / km depending on the number of people, and the reference of the car (gas / diesel / year ...). Either the people who share their trip are in the same schools and so the "sharer" who does not have a car, offers to help the driver on a topic the owner would have previously expressed the need. Either people who share their journey are not in the same school, and then, either the skills of one can help the other, or so, it offers in exchange a service (cleaning, meal preparation, driving the vehicle for someone who does not have the license ...).
The proposed service requires: geolocation, an online payment system, a calendar system, and a chat system. The social network that offers these features, and on which most students are registered, is Facebook. We can then imagine a native integration to the FB website, by adding a "School Ride" tab and a dedicated app that would group all these services to help bring these students to school, such as a scholar bus 2.0.
describe the universe around your service by creating a mood board and name your service accordingly (see name in title)
How does your project relates to Web? Describe use cases
Our project is about the web because it is a 100% online platform, smart, and using different features already used by students, which, put together, would create a new use. Indeed, all students use the location or the planning of FB to find parties around their home. All students use FB messaging to work together on projects or to be in touch. Thus, our platform will integrate intuitively in the use of the students so as not to generate a long time of adaptation, but on the contrary to allow them an immediate, fast and effective use. Similarly, a payment solution exists on Facebook messenger.
The use scenarios are then as follows:
For the owners: they enter their license plate, the service is connected to the register of registrations and thus the information of the car is recorded. Then, he will issue his typical route for the week (according to his round trip and the name of the school). This will send a signal, an announcement, in its geographical area. He will then inform the type of payment he wants (financial, school aid or nature), and voila. When he does not use the car, he can then self-service his car on certain slots. He can choose to only lend to people with whom he has already traveled (trust) or not.
For users: they simply enter the name of their school and can view the vehicles or trips offered in their near geographical area, the price of trips, as well as the type of remuneration requested, and make a reservation request. If this request is accepted, a meeting point is agreed between sharers and the owner.
For the drivers: they can see the announcements of the vacant cars of the owners. It then passes in an interface similar to that of an owner. Since the spirit is to mix car sharing and carpooling, it will have to indicate its route. In return for a free use, it will take care of transporting users, Thus, they can use the car without expenses and the expenses of displacement (+ margin if necessary) are chargeable to the users, and will be paid back to the owner.
For the practical part, the driver can borrow the car on a slot defined in advance with the owner and must imperatively return the vehicle at the agreed time. The school itself can have a role to play, by encouraging these initiatives that decongest the car parks, by offering reserved places and also by providing electric charging places if necessary.
List concurrents / relative projects and describe how they relate/differentiate to your project
Car sharing solutions which has a fleet of vehicles, and whose unlocking is done by a card received after registration. No concept of carpooling. No notion of sharing the car of an individual either.
Like the first three, with the exception that they are electric vehicles, with charging and booking stations.
Solution offered to companies to set up a system of carsharing. Interesting if a school decided to set it up at its own expense for its students. Different niche.
All these solutions allow the rental of a car, but none allows both to share a trip and / or a car, more our concept mix carpooling and carsharing and thus becomes a service of "car shooling".
books/films/articles/...
Here is a preview of what the app will look like:
If you want to try it life, just click on XD Ushas project.
The first step is to redirect our users either to a web page , accessible on a mobile or to our app :
Then, the aim is to allow our users to connect our app with their Faecbook account so it is really easy to use:
The body of the HTTP request is sent in JSON format and requires three properties:
Here is a simple example of a request body to send a text message:
Here the aim is to get the current location of a user (when he uses the app to find or publish a journey):
Then we will connect it to Google Maps API as follow:
Regarding journeys, here is an example of a request from Disneyland to Universal Studios Hollywood , in JSON format:
Below is a sample response, in JSON, taken from Google's developers website:
The last part is to connect the license plate to a database, in order to secure journey, here is an Json example for the plate number LJ05FHV :
With those features, our app should be able to run correctly, and to provide all the features we have shown in our mockups.
