Find My Bike Proposal

Introduction:
In recent years, bike theft around the University of New Mexico has gone
rampant. In 2013-2014, the campus saw a 70% increase in bikes stolen, even after
2014 when the new anti-bike theft protocols and procedures were put in place. To
combat this, UNM has released public statements asking the students to purchase
stronger locks, tie the wheels along with the frame, and not to leave their bikes in a
public place overnight. Despite these suggestion the number of bike being stolen has
not been decreased. How can we stop this bike theft pandemic? This has been the
serious issue inside the campus.

This is not the problem which was started yesterday. The trend of getting bike
stolen has been continued for years and years and a lot of students have been
adversely affected by it. Getting bikes stoles can be a serious issue for poor students
who even struggles to pay their college fees. This might lead a student to leave the
school and to stop their education in the middle due to the over expenditure. So to solve
this problem, My team and I propose a solution that would both save money and
effectively deter thieves without question. We believe that the usage of GPS tracking
chip in the bike would be helpful in eliminating this problem from UNM.

Problem Section:

Number of biken stolen per semester

Dec-13
Oct-13
Aug-13
Jun-13
Number of biken stolen per
semester

Apr-13
Feb-13
Dec-12
Oct-12
Aug-12
0

50

100

150

200

250

Bike theft is a major problem on our UNM campus, It is reported by Lt Tim Stump
that 120 bikes were stolen in 2012, and in 2013 the number raised to 209. Its
unacceptable that personal property is being stolen on campus and we will do what is
necessary to keep our property safe. Many students use bicycles as a means of
transportation on and off campus in a timely manner.
For some students without cars or motor vehicles, their bike is their only means
of transportation around town. The bus doesnt always provide sufficient transportation
for students with various occupational and educational schedules. If students lose their
only mode of transportation, they may be forced to choose between employment and
higher education. This decision is often forced by the fear of losing their place of
residence and lack of funds for food. We as students are coming to and some living on
a campus that isnt protecting our property, even that drastically lowers retention rates
and makes tuition more expensive. Therefore, UNM takes revenue loss as a whole.

Profits aside, we are looking at a community that discourages individuals from attending
school due to a solvable problem such as bike theft.
Many students and teachers have seen locks that dangle uselessly on bike
racks, tires deserted, or even just bike frames. This both de-motivates students and
inspires potential bike thieves because the crime is going unpunished due to the
frequency of it around campus. UNM PD has tried to serialize the bicycles in order to
prevent theft, but it continues despite the past police countermeasures. In the previous
years, UNM PD has hired four extra officers to help monitor the bike theft and yet crime
has only gone up, also raising tuition.
Currently UNM campus has students that can't trust each other and thus far no
one has been held accountable for these actions. We need an active plan that will keep
people honest, and hold the ones thieving accountable for their crime.

Solution:

Modern technology has allowed for small computer chip trackers that will provide
real time GPS data to a remote location such as an iphone or even a police station. The
low cost and availability of this technology will allow for every student that uses a bicycle
as transportation to contain one to three computer chips per bike. This basically means
that we can put a tracker in the handlebars, and both wheels, essentially stopping all
threats of losing the location of a student's bike in a theft situation.

1. Micro chipping the bike and its working mechanism:

UNM can sell the computer chip tracking service as a package deal, adding on
an extra charge for wheel registration. Students would take their bikes to the police
station at the start of the year, have the police secure the chip inside with a combination
of a drill bit into the core of the bikes mantle, frame, or handlebars. Then a small chip
insertion into the rubber lining of the wheels, that way if the bike was stolen the student
simply contacts the police. The police in turn could pull up a map of all the bikes, as well
as track down the bike and in turn apprehend the thief. As for the tires, there are two
options for the approach available. The student could pay an extra fee for a smart chip
that tracks the distant of itself relative to the other chips, and would contact the police
when that distant exceeds the possible length of the bike, meaning someone has
detached the wheels. This would essentially stop all theft, as the cops would be alerted
immediately, or as soon as the student contacted them, and would be able to track
down the bike instantly. The thieves would soon realize they do not have a chance at
stealing a bike and getting away with unless they broke the tires and frames they tried
to profit from. The tire chips would be much smaller due to the fact that they would only
have to work off a short range signal.

2. Price for micro chipping:

The cost may seem expensive, but in mass quantities a single shipment would
only cost around 10$ and the smart chip technology would be more of a programming
based expense only costing 1 or two more dollars. Police have agreed to work with
UNM and the cost for police would be the initial training costs, to teach the officers how
to drill into the bike frame without overly damaging any aspects of it, as well as
concealing the screw marks.

3. Insurance policy and the security of your bike:

The service find my bike would work in the same way the find my Iphone service
works, except with the added benefit of police tracking. To encourage initial users, We
devised an insurance guarantee that could be added, charging 5$ for every 100$ dollars
worth of bike insurance. Thieves may continue to steal the bikes then attempt to scrap
the parts, but we can set up bait bikes to notify the criminals that they will be caught
because of new technologies. The fear of going to jail or being heavily fined will
outshine the profit of scrap metal, as they could no longer sell a working bike.
All technological problems that may occur will be dealt with through the UNM
engineering department as well. One of the perks of being a student led taskforce is that
we have all of UNMs available resource and can see potential hurdles along the road.
Through our qualifications detailed below and our FindMyBike system, we can finally
put an end to bike theft.

Qualifications

I myself started out the year with a bike, assuming that a cable lock would be
enough and that the UNM bike pandemic was nothing more than over hype based on
fear. After three days I saw my bike was missing and my lock was mangled on the
ground. So, I bought a second bike as well as one of the strongest U-Locks that UNM
recommended getting. Three weeks later and I, yet again found myself walking to class.
I decided that until a solution came around I would remain bike less. Then, I decided

that instead of waiting hopelessly for a solution, I decided to propose an answer to the
problem and influence make the change I wanted to see. I met with individuals in the
same predicament with the same motivation and spoke with the police to form a student
task force determined to stop bike theft. Next we went to the engineering department to
put the product together. And with combination of three students, Police department and
some engineers from Civil Engineering department, we formed a group which would
deliberately work to solve the problem of bike theft inside the campus. We gave our
name as a Student task force just to show our professionalism and to gain more
authority , we After many sessions of trial and error, we came up the MyBike System, a
foolproof plan to end all bike theft on and around campus.

As a student led taskforce, we have had firsthand experience in trying to keep

our bikes safe, but to no avail. We have combined our ideas with UNM PD, who employ
competent officers that are able to retrieve stolen property, and are rigorously trained to
handle aggressive situations as well as how to de-escalate a rising confrontation.
Combined with support from UNMs own engineering department, we have the
necessary knowledge and tools to teach officers the proper steps of assembly and
installation of the GPS trackers, as well as help with any technical difficulties along the
way.

Cost and Benefit:

Table of Total Estimated cost

Plan

Estimated cost for

Students

Quantity of each
product

Estimated initial cost for

UNM
(Annual Cost)

Bike Chips for general

protection

$25

2000 GPS Chips

$50,000

Advance Security protection (3

chip system)

$35

200 ASC Package

$7,000

Gadgets for Tracking

(Solar panel, Antenna etc)

$5

15 computer +
GPS antennas

10,000

Total

$30 or $40

$67,000

1. Cost :
The cost for conduction of this project is relatively low, and with high benefit.
Since this project will be focusing on all students who ride bikes in and out of school, the
initial investment may seem slightly costly, but when students start taking into
consideration the overall benefit and convenience of the Find My Bike system, UNM will
get their investment back in no time.
It is proposed that the school should buy around 2000 regular one chip system in
the initial phase of this program, costing around $50,000. And as said in the paragraph
above, when a student starts buying chips for their bike, the school will get their
investment back in no time, and if there is more demand of chips in the future, the
money that we collect from students can again be used as an investment to buy more
chips for another group of incoming students, thus having absolutely no loss of revenue
for the school.

The Advanced Security Chip (ASC) system will protect the wheels and the frame
of the bike, giving it maximum protection to the people who want extra security for their
bikes (those with high end bikes). The cost for ASC system is $35 per package and
school is suggested to buy around 200 packages initially. However, the ASC system is
100% optional to the students, and is not necessarily needed, but recommended. Since
the Advanced Security Chip and the normal chip have the same mechanism,, it would
be hard for a general bike thief to know which bike has 3 chip system and which do not
has 3 chip system. This would mean that the thief would have much more pressure to
not steal even the tires of the bike, as he has no cheap way of knowing the difference
between two and 3 chips.

For buying the gadgets needed to run the system it is proposed that the
Administration should buy 15 computers of $500 each and the rest $2500 for GPS
tracker, solar panel and Antenna and other general equipment. Since the price of the
Solar Panel and Antenna is not that much, the money left from all these expenses will
be deliberately used to improve the tracking system and the records of all those
miscellaneous expenses will be sent to the Administration of UNM just to make sure
that none of the grant money has been wasted in other stuff rather than solving bike
problems.

2. Benefits after the completion of project:

Though the cost of starting this projects looks a little bit expensive, since this
project is long term, the expenses will drop down to a minimal amount if looked in a

yearly basis. This project will bring a revolution in parking of bikes on campus. After the
completion of this project, students will feel secured while parking their bike on campus.
The tension of students about their bikes being stolen would get significantly reduced,
allowing students to concentrate better in their classes, which in turn will help them to
get good grades.
If our project works well and helps to decrease the rate of bikes being stolen per
year, then we can even branch the MyBike system into other schools around the
country. Besides that, this project helps police officers to catch the criminals and bike
thieves faster. The bike thief might also have some other criminal charges, so through
this GPS tracking system, police officers can locate the place where they sell the stolen
bikes and sometimes due to the help of our project, police officers can find different
gangs or group of criminals which in turn will make the school and society crime free
and a better place to get knowledge and to live in.
The other advantage of this project is, if people feel secure taking their bike in
campus then the usage of vehicles like Motor bikes or Scooters will be significantly
reduced in campus. This will help us save some petroleum products for our future
generation and it also reduce some major accidents on campus which is happening due
to the reckless speeds of Scooters and motorcycles.

Conclusion:
To conclude, we, the Student task force would like to suggest the UNM
administration that, this project might be the cheapest project on which UNM can invest
in, to get the maximum profit. Not only UNM would be profited financially, UNM would

be profited in terms of goodwill and would also be profited in terms of security. We

believe, after conduction of this project, students at UNM would feel secured while
parking their bikes in the school and moreover, it will reduces the fear of an individual
not losing their bike at the middle of the class period which will increase the
performance of the students. Thats why we kindly request the Administration to
approve our proposal to the betterment of the whole UNM.