E-Bike and E-Scooter Battery Swap Blocking for Trip Availability
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Dynamic transportation networks face challenges in ensuring that personal mobility vehicles, such as e-bikes and e-scooters, have sufficient battery charge for on-demand transportation, which can lead to service disruptions and inefficiencies in maintenance operations.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a system that periodically blocks electrically-assisted personal mobility vehicles for battery swapping based on efficient conditions such as current location, technician availability, and maintenance needs, optimizing the availability and distribution of maintained vehicles while reducing operations efforts.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If personal mobility vehicles are kept in continuous service, then productivity is improved, but battery charge sufficiency deteriorates leading to service disruptions
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary battery swapping by blocking vehicles proactively before their battery charge falls below a threshold level. The blocker module prevents vehicles with insufficient battery charge from being deployed, and the battery swap module replaces them with fully charged batteries in advance, ensuring continuous service availability without disruptions.
2Reliability
If battery swapping is performed frequently, then battery charge sufficiency is improved, but loss of time increases due to maintenance operations
Solution Approach 1:
The system blocks vehicles proactively before their battery charge drops below the threshold, performing battery swaps in advance rather than waiting for vehicles to fail. This preliminary action prevents service disruptions and reduces the urgency and duration of maintenance operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses automated tracking of battery charge levels and automatic blocking decisions based on predefined thresholds, reducing the need for manual monitoring and intervention. The blocker module automatically identifies and blocks vehicles needing battery swaps, streamlining the maintenance process.
3Reliability
If all vehicles are monitored and blocked for battery swapping, then battery charge sufficiency is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Each vehicle is equipped with a battery charge tracking system that automatically monitors its own charge level and communicates it to the central management system. The blocker module uses simple threshold-based logic to determine when blocking is necessary, avoiding complex decision-making algorithms while ensuring reliable battery charge sufficiency.
Data Source
AI summary
The disclosed computer-implemented method may include identifying a personal mobility vehicle that is available to reserve for a trip, determining that at least one metric for a level of maintenance for the personal mobility vehicle indicates a need for performing the maintenance on the personal mobility vehicle, determining at least one metric for an operations effort for performing the maintenance at a current location of the personal mobility vehicle, and blocking use of the personal mobility vehicle, to facilitate the operations effort for the performing of the maintenance, based at least in part on the metric for the level of maintenance and at least in part on the metric for the operations effort indicating an advantage to performing the maintenance at the current location. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.