Evaluative Criteria

The proposed solutions will be evaluated by using four criteria: cost, reliability, ease of implementation, and ease of use. These metrics were chosen because they are the most important factors when evaluating any alternative.

Needless to say, cost is an important metric to evaluate. Lafayette must be careful about where its endowment is allocated, because the projects need to have a significant positive impact on the college, students, faculty, staff, and the surrounding community. Further, any projects Lafayette chooses to pursue ideally will not impact funding on any other initiatives from other departments.

Reliability, the second evaluative criteria, was chosen for many of the same reasons as cost, as the two are directly related. An unreliable product will create a large magnitude of maintenance and repair costs, thus adding to the overall cost of the project. Additionally, bicycles for an unreliable product may be consistently out of service making it inaccessible to users. This also results in the  overall decrease of the systems effectiveness. Consequently when there is a lack of bikes due to poor reliability, either more bikes will need to be purchased in anticipation of breakdowns, or more money will have to be spent to hire a mechanic for constant maintenance. Clearly, implementing a tested, reliable system would minimize these risks and would aid in an effortless implementation of this bike-share system at Lafayette.

The third evaluative criteria is ease of implementation, which by definition represents the level of difficulty faced to put each bike-share solution in place at Lafayette. This is an important factor because depending on the alternative, the level of ease can determine how feasible it may be. In some instances implementation may be as simple as paying a fee, while for others new employees may need to be hired, contracts with local businesses arranged, infrastructure built, and more. This criteria will assess what is needed for each solution.

The fourth and final evaluative criteria used is ease of use. This includes features such as the location of the central bike hub on campus, ease of reserving / picking up a bike, being able to see how many bikes are available or where they are located, maintenance, timeframe for implementation, and more. This is an important factor to consider because it is directly correlated to how often this system will be used by community members.

The three potential solutions will be rated on a scale of 1 to 3 for each of the evaluative criteria above, with 3 being the best and 1 being the worst rating. A simple 1-2-3 system is very concise and will provide clear “winners” and “losers” for each type of criteria. Finally, a weight of 1.5 has been added to the cost criteria, as cost is likely to be considered the most important metric for Lafayette. This is because all three solutions will essentially create the desired bike-share system; but, the cost between them differ significantly. Furthermore, many individuals, namely administrators of Lafayette who control financing, will care most heavily about the bottom line. The metrics of reliability, ease of implementation, and ease of use will remain with a weight of 1.

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To navigate accross the page please use the following links:
• Bike-share Meets Lafayette
• The Team
• Defining the Scope
• Challenges and Mitigating Factors
• Solutions
• Conclusion
• Bibliography