Eco-Delivery

A new system to reduce traffic in downtown Lyon, France

Summer 2018

Eco-Delivery is a commercial delivery system aimed at reducing the number of delivery vehicles in the downtown area of Lyon, France. The premise is that a locker drop-off point is designated to limit the number of delivery trucks and vehicles entering the pedestrian areas of downtown. This project was created as a solution to excessive cars in a crowded pedestrian area of the city, the problem presented to me and my team of U.S. students by our professors as the CIBUM (Creativity to Innovation to BUsiness Model) Challenge for the Management and Innovation in Europe track of INSA Lyon’s Engineering Summer Study Abroad program.

Project Details

Timeline: 4 weeks

Team Size: 5 interdisciplinary engineering students

My Role: Analogous Design Researcher/Developer

Skills Practiced: ideation, analogous design, project planning, interviews, behavior and culture observation, persona creation, interaction map development, presentation prototype building

Design Process

Scope

The initial issue presented to my team was that the downtown area of Lyon has too much vehicle traffic. We were asked to research, ideate, and design a solution that lowered the amount of cars entering the city.

Assumptions

Below is our brainstorm of as many possible pains, gains, and profiles surrounding the reasons vehicles might be in the city. From that, we narrowed in on some assumptions about the problem. Originally, we assumed that vehicles in the city likely belonged to those commuting to work or in the city to shop or eat at restaurants. Another assumption we made was that the public transportation must not support those commuters and visitors in some key way that we needed to discover.

Initial sticky-note ideation of pains, gains, and profiles

[In]validation

Before designing a solution, we needed to make sure the assumptions we had made were accurate and the problem we were solving was well defined. To accomplish this, my team went out into the city in partners to do intercept interviews with citizens on their way to work or visiting the downtown area. We also explored the area of interest to do some observational research.

Observation and interviews told us our assumptions were incorrect, and adjusted our problem definition to our new insights. We discovered that most employees and visitors in the area used public transit, walked, or biked to their destination within the city. Many of the people we interviewed who lived outside the city center utilized the park and ride to get to their downtown offices. As we explored, it became quite clear that most of the vehicles downtown were not for personal use but there to deliver food and products to the shops, cafes, and businesses downtown. These vehicles ranged from box trucks to the personal cars of shop owners, sellers, or employees.

*More photos from our observation trip can be found in the photo gallery at the bottom of the page.

Delivery trucks, vans, and cars creating traffic in Lyon, France

A walk-able, no cars street downtown during a mid-morning lull in Lyon, France

Pivot

New information from our interviews and observations led to a new and refined problem statement:

How might we create an eco-friendly delivery system that decreases route distance, time, and difficulty for delivery truck drivers; increases convenience and efficiency for store owners; and improves the ambiance for pedestrians and cyclists in the downtown area of Lyon?

Personas

To design a successful delivery system we first thought about how it would engage users, workers, and stakeholders. We identified some personas to better understand who we are designing for. Profiles of a shopper, store owner, and delivery man were fleshed out with details on their background, what they care about in relation to our system, and key behaviors they would likely exhibit.

These personas led us to think about ways to increase convenience for store owners, add aesthetic pleasure for shoppers, and simplify the route for a delivery truck driver.

Prior Art & Inspiration

We studied many current forms of delivery systems to gain insight into how different systems work. These systems included large commercial food delivery, Amazon’s locker program, large street-side waste bins in Marseilles, France, and the public waste management trucks in Florence, Italy. Other analogous areas explored were personal delivery apps like Stootie (the French version of Fiverr) and the street art practice in Lyon. Drawing features that worked well from each of these systems, we devised a new option for crowded downtown areas.

Commercial box delivery truck

Amazon Locker system

Waste removal truck in Florence, Italy

Large street-side waste bins in Marseilles, France

French freelance/gig-work hiring app

Example of Lyon's street art culture

Solution Idea

Our solution takes the idea of an Amazon locker, scaled up for commercial sized shipments, and combines it with the technical features of the interchangeable units of Florence’s waste management system. This solution is a refrigerated locker (or pod), packed and prepped at a local warehouse, delivered each day early in the morning before shops open. Optional use of the Stootie app allows store owners to hire local delivery men to pick up their shipment and move it the short remaining distance to the shop at any time. Strategic placing along major roads simplifies the delivery route and gives easy access to buyers and Stootie delivery men. These mobile pods would be decorated by local artists to increase their visual appeal and create a rotating art exhibit around the city. Lowered noise and vehicle pollution, simplified delivery routes and off-loading, and integration with Stootie meet the core goals we set out to achieve with this solution in our “how might we...” question.

Representative paper-prototype of locker on a delivery truck

Interaction Map

A complete solution accounts for the whole system, beginning to end. My team and I drew out an interaction map to represent the complete journey from producers and suppliers to the storefronts in crowded downtown areas like Lyon’s. This map also recognizes stakeholder partners needed to implement this solution, like truck and locker pod manufacturers, local government, warehouses, and artists.