Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Blinkers (Next generation bicycle lights. Be visible, understood and expected by other vehicles, whatever the weather, angle and situation.)
Período documentado: 2018-01-01 hasta 2018-04-30
Statistics clearly show that more than 55% of these accidents occur at crossroads, junctions and roundabouts in urban areas and currently cyclists lack appropriate technical equipment to keep them safe in such common traffic situations. However, cyclists still use hand signals to indicate their intention of turning entailing several drawbacks (not visible at night, difficult to execute at hihg-speed, and not appropriate for specific users such as children or elderly). Moreover, drivers often overtake cyclists too close for comfort. Close passes account for around a third of all threatening incidents between drivers and cyclists and drivers also have difficulties in respecting the cyclist’s space when the cyclist brakes/decelerates.
As cycling is encouraged, bike safety accessories become more fundamental for the EC to complete its ambitious Transport 2050 plan that outlines plans to ensure that the EU is a world leader in safety and security of transport. Furthermore, as e-bikes become more widespread nowadays, the number of crashes in which they are involved is also growing. Moreover, 29% of e-bikers experienced a safety incident that would not have happened on a conventional bike as other road users underestimate the speed of e-bikes. Studies show that e-bike–related trauma may involve serious injuries and have typical injury patterns that resemble those seen in motorcycle-related injuries. In the Netherlands, more cyclists than car occupants lost their lives on Dutch roads last year, with the number of people killed while riding their bicycles attributed to a sharp rise in men aged over 65 riding e-bikes.
To address this problems we have developed Blinkers, a holistic plug-and-play safely solution for cyclist. Blinkers’ system architecture comprises of front and rear blinkers, smart lights, a laser perimeter and a control pad - through which the whole systems operates. The system is designed to solve cyclists’ problems in urban environments namely - visibility and predictability when changing directions; obviousness when braking and that their safety space respected. During the Feasibility Study we surveyed early adopters and found that the current features of Blinkers meet or exceed the expectations of users so we decided to focus our product development on adapting Blinkers to meet the needs of additional growing markets namely, e-bikes and e-bike sharing schemes (anti-vandal system and charging system).
Also during the Feasibility Study, we evaluated the business sustainability by means of a detailed market analysis (size, barriers, customer segments, competitors) and prepared a commercialisation strategy and a detailed financial analysis. A large available market was identified which was narrowed down to 4 important high growth e-bike target European countries. Moreover, we finalised our supply and validated our value chain. During the study we also secured all the strategic partnerships required for scale-up as well as 20 new retailers to stock our innovative product.
Cyclists do not want to think whether their safety solution covers a specific safety scenario, but they want to be covered in every situation and from every angle. Blinkers remains the only system that takes a holistic approach to urban cycling safety and makes the cyclist visible and predictable in every situation, from any angle of vision, road type or action (deceleration, change of direction and braking). Blinkers is also the only solution to incorporate an automatic e-bike charger resulting in it being the go-to safety product for this booming market.