For years students at the University of South Florida have enjoyed a bike rental program.
- App users can see location of bikes on campus
- Bikeshare data merged with transit data in same application
- Link to learn more
The process was simple. A student ID was presented at the Student Activities Center and the bikes were returned to that same place.
Now, Dr. Sean Barbeau and his students have taken the process high tech and, in doing so, put USF in a national spotlight.
"We worked with another student to come up with the idea as part of the Google Summer of Code Program. As part of this Google program, students from around the world work on cutting edge open source software projects."
In this case that meant creating software to track the existing location of every bike in the Share-A-Bull Bikeshare program and make that information available through the HART One Bus Away Application. It's the first time bikeshare data has been merged with transit data in the same application, according to Barbeau.
"What's interesting about this feature in One Bus Away is for the newer floating bikes that have GPS units on them," Barbeau said. "You're able to find those rather easily within the app and those bikes don't have racks."
App users with existing accounts can see the location of bikes on campus, reserve them, then when finished, simply lock the bike up when finished. The new location of the available bike is then visible for the next user.
Coast Bike Share, owners of the USF bikes, is also using crowd-sourcing data from student usage to reposition bikes into high demand areas.
The app is still in beta testing, however, the test is open and anyone may join. To download the One Bus Away Application and be part of the USF Bikeshare test, visit the Google Play Store.