An e-trike ICE project - innovative, concrete and ergonomic: systems design to support sustainable e-trike commercialization

摘要

Transportation plays a major role in the economic growth and development of a country. In the Philippines, where roads are smaller, narrower and often congested, tricycle population has increased considerably. People ride tricycles primarily due to lack of alternative mode of transportation and convenience, giving the advantage of speed and cost. However, riding a tricycle has several disadvantages and discomfort. The body of the tricycle is deemed too small, but passengers are cramped inside to maximize the number of passengers per trip. The challenge in the past and now is how to minimize the negative impact caused by these vehicles, while continuing to meet the daily transport demands of a growing population. As support to environmental initiatives, several electric tricycle (e-trike) projects have been undertaken in different parts of the Philippines, one of which is the e-trike project initiated by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). This paper presents: (1) an improved e-trike design that provides a comfortable and safe riding experience for all its passengers and (2) a sustainable system for its operation, maintainability and adoption, using ergonomic principles to improve on the current design of the e-trike in the Philippines. Study areas include National Capital Region (NCR) and Southern Luzon, within low and middle-class population. The design improvements for the e-trike are classified into three major factors: (1) functionality, (2) safety and (3) comfort. These proposed changes are developed by using customer requirements gathered from the survey, identifying optimal conditions using Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and TRIZ methodologies, and using Value Engineering (VE) approach in analyzing design functions and generating better and more innovative designs. Ergonomics is also utilized as a vital tool to align pre-determined human factors with existing and proposed specifications.