Japan currently has one of the highest pedestrian death rates in the world. While the number of traffic accident deaths of passengers in cars has decreased sharply over the years, the number of pedestrian deaths has remained relatively high, overtaking the number of passenger deaths in 2009 to be the top contributor to traffic accident deaths in Japan. In yet other statistical survey, it is revealed that the main cause of traffic accidents in Japan can be attributed to the lack of due consideration to safety on the part of drivers, whereas the fault of pedestrians as a cause of traffic accidents only takes up a small percentage. The above lend evidence that "pedestrian deaths" as a societal problem has not been adequately addressed and that the safety consideration of drivers needs to be looked into. Our design project thus hopes to come up with an appropriate recommendation, while meeting the requirements of our project sponsor, Suzuki Motor Corporation, which hopes to develop its own automobile software that can contribute to the realization of a safer mobility system for society.
A myriad of tools were used in creating the final solution. Through VOX benchmarking, we found out that there was strong emphasis on using hardware innovation to reduce the number of traffic accidents while there was little competition in the field of automobile safety software. We also talked to the key stakeholders (drivers and pedestrians) and found that dimly-lit roads and road intersections were examples of what, to them, constituted as danger on the roads. Scenario Graph and Use Case taught us that software for drivers and that for pedestrians should have slightly differentiated functions. CVCA was especially helpful when devising our business model that relies on both advertising revenue and royalty fees. QFD showed us that the most important solution element was software (relative weight of 20%). FMEA taught us that to just rely on users as the only source of information of dangerous locations may pose a high risk to the usefulness of the system,whereas rototyping gave us a means of visualizing the "final" form of our product. Through financial evaluation, we calculated that the NPV at a rate of return of 15% is $8489000.
We thus recommend a car navigation software that makes use of a unified safety map for both drivers and pedestrians in order to realize a safer mobility system for society. Lack of funding is a probable risk factor that can hinder the progress of our project and should it occur, we would have to launch our product on an even smaller scale in the early stages to mitigate the risk.
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