thoughts

Everyone who has looked at the same area as me previously has seemed to spend their time on proving the viability of pedal powered vehicles, or tying to create products that fit current behaviour. I believe the answer to the problem does not lie there. I have to change behaviour, rather then adapt the technology to current behaviour.
However people are unwilling to change their behaviour, as seen by the short lived 20% increase in public transport usage when petrol first went over $1.30. As petrol remained at this price, people became used to it, and started moving back to their cars again.
So I plan to take as my model, the business plan of the ipod, and implement it in pedal powered transport.
The ipod started with a product that satisfied specific needs, and rendered other needs less important then they were previously. One important feature was that it was aesthetically appealing. The interesting thing is that they have managed to sustain the development over 5 years and in the foreseeable future the growth does not seem to show any signs of slowing. This is good because it goes against the trend for cool products to fall by the wayside. Also unlike many other products, ipods feature prominently in their users lives, like mobile phones and other high profile electronic products. These all required people to sacrifice certain things in exchange for other benefits. I would like to try to tap into people's reptilian instincts and emotions, and create a need or desire for environmentally friendly transport on a more base level. It is also important to ensure that it is a self-propagating and perpetuating culture that will survive for a long time.



tuff riding music - blood on our hands / Death From Above 1979