To: Joanne Proft (Community Planning and Transportation Manager)

Research Proposal

From: Agnes Ho

Date: June 3rd, 2015

Subject: Research Proposal for determining the feasibility of a bike rental system at UBC

Introduction

City of Vancouver has been promoting the idea of go-green on transportation. It encourages residents to use bike as their prime transportation for work and school. The Public Bike Share System was planned by the City of Vancouver since 2011 and gradually implemented. This system allows people to borrow a bike at specific bike rental stations anytime. At UBC, Bike Kitchen is currently the only place for students to rent their bikes. Students need to travel all across campus to reach the Bike Kitchen in order to borrow bikes.

Statement of Problem

UBC is a huge campus in which students sometimes may need to walk or take a bus in order to travel to the opposite side of the campus. For example, students need to walk about 15-20 minutes from Buchanan to the Forestry building. Moreover, the frequency of the buses circulate around campus tends to be low. Many students may not be able to afford a bike or simply do not want to purchase one for some reasons. Biking is a great way to exercise, explore around the campus, and go for a quick trip to the grocery store. The lack of bike rental facilities decreases the motivation of people to ride bikes around campus.

Proposed Solution

Since riding bikes is beneficial to students and residents, bike rental services should be made more convenient to people at UBC. This new bike rental system at UBC may imitate the Public Bike Share System (PBS) or even extend the PBS to UBC from Vancouver. All users need to register with the company in order to keep track of their bike usage. Bike rental stations will be set up at different locations around campus. Each station will store about five bikes in a cage in which users may get access to choose their bikes after tapping a card to enter the cage. They may return the bikes at any location of their convenience. Users are charged on the basis of the distance they ride each month.

In order to determine the feasibility of this new bike rental system, the following areas need to be investigated in this research.

- How will this bike rental system influence people taking bus and walking? - Would people prefer owning or renting a bike?

- How many people demand bike rentals at UBC approximately?

- What are the costs of implementing the new bike rental system?

- Where should the bike stations located?

- What type of bikes should we provide?

- What is an affordable price to charge students and residents at UBC?

- What are the costs and locations for maintenance in the future?

- Is there room for this service/ business to grow?

- Will the implementation of this system affect existing bike rental services around UBC?

Methods

Survey and interviews are major methods to collect primary data for this research. Surveys will be conducted with bike-users and non-bike-users around UBC to collect statistics on the demand of rental bikes, the type of bikes preferred, and the price range. I will conduct an interview with the manager of the PBS of the City of Vancouver to collect more information regarding this bike system. It is also necessary to have meetings with UBC about the possibility of setting up this new system on campus. I will need to consult some relevant companies regarding the costs of implementing and maintaining this system. In terms of rooms for growth in the future, I may discuss with Bike Kitchen to decide if there is any possibility of cooperation on other aspects of bike services such as bike repairing.

My Qualification

I am a third year Economics student who is living at residence for the past three years. I have much experience and knowledge regarding students’ needs based on my various volunteer positions on campus. As a non-bike-user at UBC, I would really hope to make biking more convenient to students and to see more students riding bikes to school or travel across campus.

Conclusion

Biking is a great and enjoyable exercise for students. UBC clearly is lacking bike rental facilities for students to use for short distance travel on campus. By setting up the new bike rental system, students will be more encouraged to exercise and go-green on transportation. It will also help students to save time waiting for buses. Your approval of this research will help students to move one step ahead to a better bike rental service with a more health life and environmental friendly community.