Project: Designing a Ride Sharing Service

Goal: It is estimated that 25% of cars sold in 2025 will be driverless. You are hired by a start-up company to analyze a ride sharing business model that can compete with traditional car ownership and lease options. This business may be thought of a pool of paying customers using a fleet of cars which are owned by the business. The automobiles are all driverless although one can choose to drive an automobile. Many different features may include: excursive ride just for you (higher cost) and ride sharing (low cost) for a routine trip. Members of this "car club" just pick up the phone or use a computer to summon a ride or confirm a pre-scheduled ride. A reasonable wait time should be within 10 minutes for a pre-scheduled ride and 30 minutes for a spontaneous ride. The final outcome is a car sharing charging policy (e.g. per month, per use, or other methods) that is better (in terms of cheaper and more flexible) than car ownership or lease. Kansas City in the Kansas site (e.g. Overland Park) is a beta test site for collecting all tax related data. The cash flows of all alternatives should consider all revenues and costs including operational, depreciation, taxes, and replacement related items (e.g. various life spans). Sensitivity and break-even analysis should be also included. The main perspective of this project is from the business side. Multiple ride-sharing alternatives should be considered. However, your team is also encouraged to analysis the same problem from the customer side once the best ride sharing alternative is determined. Report/grading guideline: The final report is limited to 10 pages not including references and appendix (detailed Excel sheets). The report should include the following sections I. Executive Summary (one page 10%) II. Introduction of alternative description (20%) II. Estimation of all costs and benefits (20%) III. Construction of cash flow diagrams (10%) IV. Proper choice and accurate computation of engineering economic methods (30%) Inspiring and innovative ride sharing design (5%) Report writing free of errors and proper citation (5%)