Coventry student’s design project tackles water transport in Africa

A final year Transport Design student from Coventry University has created an innovative final year degree project looking at how transport can play a key role in providing portable drinking water to communities in rural Africa.

Umair Uddin Qazi, 26, from Leicester, came up with the idea for his Degree Show 2012 project after being inspired by a previous Coventry University graduate who designed a rescue vehicle for floods that hit Pakistan. Umair feels designers have a responsibility to create products that can really help to improve people’s lives by addressing this type of global issue.

Water trucking is common in some parts of the world but is an expensive method of delivering water. What makes this delivery system different is that it is specifically designed for this purpose. The project centres on an electrically propelled vehicle that relies on solar energy for its operation and so is both sustainable and cost effective.

Another important feature of the vehicle is a filtration and purification system that makes sure the water is safe to drink. It will also be equipped with basic medical aid as this is something most rural communities also lack.

Umair previously worked on a project which looked at updating the UK’s canal network as a means of providing an alternative public transport network for inner city commuters, in an effort to reduce rush hour traffic.