Over the course of the autumn semester, UL Product Design and Digital Media students completed smarter travel projects in groups which culminated with presentations to the UL Smarter Travel coordinators. The brief was “to make improvements to the UL bike mechanic service”. Following comprehensive research of the existing conditions, ideas for improvements to the service were brainstormed. Ideas were whittled down to a small number of highly-developed proposals ranging from the development of booking systems using applications or websites and the development of self-service facilities to ergonomic solutions to improve condition for the bike mechanic himself. Each group presented their proposals over three sessions during the last week.
UL pop-up bike shop (Big Wheel Cycles) vouchers were presented to the winning group on each of the three days of presentations. The winners were judged by Ross Higgins and Sean Collins on quality of presentations and quality of proposals.
This is not the first time that lecturers Niall deLoughry and Louise Kiernan have introduce smarter travel projects to their students. Indeed the duo received Smarter Travel Champions Certificates from Pres. Don Barry during the UL Smarter Travel Celebration Event in May of this year.