C O N N E C T I O N
Our Thought Process
The birth of Connection starts with one simple observation: today we live in a society with an aging population ,and our cities are not fitted to respond to the needs of this growing elderly population This is especially true in France. Life expectancy of French people has increased by about one quarter every four years for the last 20 years and the average age of the French population has not been stopped increasing. The "over-60s" represented 16.2% of the total population in 1950, they accounted for represented 20.6% in 2000 and is expected to reach 30 to 40% in 2050, depending on the choice of the INSEE scenario selected. Indeed, we found that many of them had to deal with physiological problems (such as vision, hearing, mobility). Driving is a complex action that requires skills and proper functioning of vision, cognition, and mobility; thus, age-related decreases in cognitive, executive, and physical functions can lead to unsafe driving. Thus, older road users are increasingly being reported as a higher risk of injury and/or death than younger road users across different travel modes.
After gathering data on this population from this age group, we noticed that their transportation needs were mostly reduced to their neighbourhoods, within a radius of 500 metres to 1 km.
The ageing of the population inevitably calls into question, at different levels, the ways in which to design, plan, operate and develop cities. To this extent, it is important to take into account the evolution of our environment, and more particularly of our cities.
Today, more and more cities are developing their technologies and becoming Smart Cities. A Smart City is a city that incorporates information and communication technologies into its operations. It is thus improving the quality of its services, such as transport and energy. It can therefore offer, for example, a service of autonomous streetlights, free parking lots lit by a car, many self-service chargers for electric cars...
It is therefore interesting to combine these two concepts.
Our Connecting application will enable older people to meet their daily or non-daily travel needs while adapting to urban transformations.
Thanks to a geolocation service, our user will be able to order an autonomous car at his current location, and go to his/her favorite location that he/she previously registered. The autonomous car market is a very promising market (more than 3 million units sold planned by 2035 in Western Europe, and nearly 6 million in the United States).
In addition, thanks to sensors in our cars, an assistance service will be set up for the elderly throughout their journey: enough to prevent a referent from knowing that they have arrived or to prevent an ambulance in case of an incident.
Connection will improve the daily lives of our seniors.
Our Values
Connection aims to simplify everyday life for our users, to do so the application itself is as simple to use as possible, we want elderly to be able to use the app intuitively without any trouble. In order to do this our User Interface is simplified specifically for our clients and we allow (and recommend) users to use a referent to guide them on the app at first in order for them to be independant later on.
We are a startup that aims to make transportation easier for the elderly, these are people that need our assistance now more than ever. In order to do so we thrive on exchanges with elderly, we try to listen to their requests and remarks as much as possible in order to really give them something as helpful as possible. We are strong believers of the #techforgood movement and hope that our services will make life easier for the ones that need it the most.
Safety is our #1 concern at Connection, our service relies on autonomous cars and it is our duty to make our customers feel relaxed and safe when riding in one of our vehicles. This is why all our cars are monitored 24/7, we react fast and accordingly in case of any issue and we are always looking for new ways to make our rides as safe as possible.
Technologies used:
- Autonomous cars:
Connection relies entirely on a self-driving car system, this allows for a safe and convenient ride for the passenger. A self driving car is is a car capable of sensing its environment and operating without any human involvement. A human passenger is not required to take control of the vehicle at any time, nor is a human passenger required to be present in the vehicle at all. An autonomous car can go anywhere a traditional car goes and do everything that an experienced human driver does. This system is extremely safe and trustworthy, it has been tested and approved and allows a secure trip. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) currently defines 6 levels of driving automation ranging from Level 0 (fully manual) to Level 5 (fully autonomous). These levels have been adopted by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The graph below pictures these 6 levels:
In this case Connection uses the level 5 of Automation (full automation), this means that the passenger entering the vehicle is not required any attention or intervention of any sort.
The only actions needed from the passenger is for him/her to click on the desired destination on the app which is directly linked to the car and to get in the car, we take care of the rest! This allows our passengers to have a relaxing and safe ride without having to worry about the road.
Self-driving cars are complex, if you want to learn more about how they work and what their challenges are, we encourage you to readinvite to read these articles:
- Video/audio surveillance of the vehicle
Even though we entirely trust our autonomous cars to take care of our clients we still think a human eye is needed to watch over our passengers. This is why each car is equipped with several cameras and a microphone/speaker inside and outside the car. These are just precautions in case something unexpected happens, whether it is a problem with the car (which is highly unlikely) or an inconvenience coming from our customers we want to be as responsive as possible, acting accordingly depending on the need. We react if something unexpected is noticeable on the cameras (inside OR outside This means that we are of course directly linked to emergency services in case of incidents with one of our passengers, we can communicate the location and the nature of the problem to emergencies precisely. We hope it never comes to this but at Connection we want our client to feel safe and well surrounded in our vehicles. - Geolocolization
Our services require geolocalization of course, this technology is included in all smartphones today, all we need is authorization from the user. This information is of course kept confidential and not used by a third party, according to our terms and services.
Vehicles Used
Connection uses 2 types of vehicles, according to the needs of the costumer. These vehicles are spread out over the city and are all automated and equipped with video/audio surveillance.
This is the basic automated car, the design is flexible and can change but the functionalities remain the same: 4 seats total with 3 doors ( 1 for luggage). It is as simple as possible while remaining comfortable for a relaxing ride.
This car has the same utilities as the first one but are accessible for those with mobility restraints , this includes people in wheelchair or who have trouble walking, the ramp is activated by our surveillance team once the customer is approaching the car.
What makes us different?
Our main competitor is Waymo-One from Google, an autonomous taxi. Waymo-One does not only target the transport of elderly people, which means that special sensors and cameras are not installed for our target. Thus, the design, service and values will not be the same as those of Connection. We will make it easier to use our application and service specially designed for people over 60.
Another competitor to consider is UberAccess, from Uber. UberAccess offers a service 100% dedicated to people with reduced mobility, by providing special cars with drivers. Here, our added value is the car's range. The user will be able to travel at any time of the day, and in record time in front of UberAccess.
Thus, we focus on serving the elderly by building on our values of simplicity, goodwill and safety, through the development of technologies, cities and habits.
Small Demos
Here are 2 small demos made for you to understand how to use the app to set up an account and use the service, this gives you an idea of the user's point of view.