Innovative Urban Transportation Means Developed by Integrating Design Methods

Abstract

The aim of this article is to apply some design methodologies to define, as a first objective, an optimized technical specification and then, as a second objective, to manage the transition from conceptual design to construction project of an innovative means of urban transport, meeting the needs of ‘renewable energy’ requirements, which then decline into this new urban vehicle formed by a hoverboard and an electric scooter. The first part of the article is focused on the conceptual design of the means by using methodologies such as the Quality Function Deployment (QFD), applied in the first phase of the work to compare some of the most popular electric scooters on the market; we then used a typical method for product marketing, i.e., the decision-making process driven by the analysis of benchmarking, suitable for quantitatively organize competitive analysis and choosing innovation targets; finally, we implemented the top-flop analysis in order to better improve the benchmarking implementation, identifying the best product on the market, basing on the highest number of innovative requirements owned by it, as shown by Frizziero in 2018 and Meuli et al. in 1997. The second part of the article focuses on the project of the kick scooter through the use of a software for the FEA simulation and on the possible realization of the prototype through a suitable connecting component.

Keywords

• QFD
• benchmarking
• innovation
• transport
• vehicle
• product design
• conceptual design
• top-flop analysis