Minneapolis Selects Public Bike System

Hot off the virtual presses! Here's the latest from Nice Ride Minnesota in their press release:

MINNEAPOLIS (Feb. 2, 2010) - Nice Ride Minnesota, a new non-profit created to bring public bike sharing to Minneapolis, today announced that it has chosen Public Bike System Company (PBSC), developer of the Montreal BIXI™ bike-share system, to supply bikes and kiosks to Minneapolis. BIXI launched its 5,000-bike system in Montreal last year to rave reviews.

Advanced bike-share systems have been operating in cities like Paris and Barcelona for several years now. The engineers at BIXI learned from the successes in these cities and built a bike share system that is elegant, rugged, and simple to use. Time Magazine recognized BIXI as one of the top inventions of 2008, right behind the Mars Rover.

The BIXI system enables an annual subscriber to take a bike from any kiosk with the swipe of a card and return it to any kiosk by simply pushing it into a dock, which locks automatically. The solar-powered system creates accountability: subscribers sign a user agreement online and the system keeps track of who has each bike at all times. The bikes are designed for short trips in the city, such as across downtown for an appointment or a quick trip to a local market, which in turn reduces pollution and congestion. The bikes are designed to be ridden by people wearing regular clothes and include full fenders, lights and a cargo rack.

Nice Ride Minnesota’s Phase 1 plan calls for 1,000 bikes in 80 kiosks throughout downtown, the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus and surrounding commercial districts. Nice Ride expects to have at least 65 of these kiosks in place when it launches Minneapolis’ bike share in June 2010.

Minneapolis joins Boston and London in selecting the BIXI equipment as the best for an urban bike-share system. Nice Ride Minnesota expects to finalize a contract with the PBSC very soon.

The primary funding sources for this purchase come from a Bike Walk Twin Cities (BWTC) grant and a Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota (Blue Cross) sponsorship using proceeds from its historic settlement with tobacco companies.

BWTC is a federally funded initiative to increase biking and walking and reduce driving in Minneapolis and neighboring communities. A program of Transit for Livable Communities, BWTC allocates funds to local governments for safer crosswalks, bike lanes, and other improvements, and works with organizations, businesses and residents on public education about biking and walking options.

Blue Cross’ commitment to promoting prevention and wellness is evident in its anti-smoking campaigns and efforts to fight obesity. The bike-share program will help people to be active and move more making it a strong complement to the Blue Cross do campaign, which encourages everyone to “groove your body every day.” Each bike will display the do message.

Nice Ride Minnesota has also received support from a diverse group of businesses. Target, Augsburg College, Grant Thornton, Abbott Northwestern Hospital, Dorsey & Whitney LLP, Seward Co-op, Wedge Co-op, Equal Exchange, Peace Coffee, Birchwood Cafe, DERO Bike Rack Co. and Aveda have all committed to sponsor Nice Ride bike-share kiosks.

image credit: Nice Ride Minnesota (The bike graphic above does look like a nice ride.)

Bike-sharing Models of Provision

Hello Bike-sharers!

Sorry it's taken so long to post. My company, MetroBike, LLC, has been very busy with work for the upcoming bike-sharing programs in Arlington, Virginia, USA and Copenhagen, Denmark. Both programs will be very exciting, so stay tuned.

I wanted to share with The Bike-sharing Blog readers a new report of mine in The Journal of Public Transportation titled "Bike-sharing: History, Impacts, Models of Provision, and Future". The paper "discusses the history of bike-sharing from the early 1st generation program to present day 3rd generation programs. Included are a detailed examination of models of provision, with benefits and detriments of each, and a description of capital and operating costs. The paper concludes with a look into the future through discussion about what a 4th generation bike-sharing program could be."

If you're coming to this site, you'd likely find the report interesting. So make yourself a cup of tea and enjoy the read.

2009 Wrap-up

2009 has been another stupendous year for bike-sharing! An unscientific count of the bike-sharing services listed on The Bike-sharing World Map, plus a few more from Spain where bike-sharing services seem to sprout like dandelions, puts the number at about 160 globally. This is up from 92 at the end of last year for an increase of 74% in the number of services worldwide. There are so many services out there now as compared to just two years ago that it has actually made it difficult to keep up with everything that is going on. This is a good thing. Go humans!

The planet and its people are ready for bike-sharing now more than ever before. With the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference earlier this month, international support at the highest levels of government was shown for improving how we treat the planet... however we have a long way to go.

Conference-goers and activists were representing their home countries in the city that brought the bike-sharing movement into the modern era with Copenhagen’s forward-thinking Bycyklen or “City Bike” service in 1995. If each conference attendee were to take the idea back with them to their home countries and cities, bike-sharing’s reach and its positive impacts would be even more powerful. Incrementally, countries could block the greenhouse gases being created by the encroachment of polluting modes of transportation on sustainable modes like walking and cycling, while making cities healthier and better places to live. Utopian? You betcha! If we have a key which is part of the overall solution, we should use it.

As we enter a new decade, The Bike-sharing Blog will be there to follow trends in this nascent industry. Thank you for continuing to make The Bike-sharing Blog the world’s #1 source of information on bike-sharing, public bikes, bicicletas públicas, fahrradverleih, or whatever it may be known as in your part of the world.

Wishing you a happy and healthy 2010.

Best,
Paul DeMaio
MetroBike, LLC

Propaganda Time

I normally don't post propaganda, however, it was either this or a video of the coal that Santa brought, so here's a nice piece that Clear Channel Outdoor created about its SmartBike system. This smooth video discusses its technology and has brief interviews with customers from around the globe using a bike-sharing bike. Whatever the language, there's always the smile. Bike-sharing is good.

Onroll Rolls Across Spain

A bike-sharing system that has yet to receive attention on The Bike-sharing Blog, until now, is called Onroll from the Spanish company domoblue. Onroll is one of the few systems out there where rental and return is conducted by text message (SMS). To join, one must register their mobile phone number to receive a customer code. Checking out a bike is as easy as sending a text message with the following information:

"Take b[bike number] l[lock number] [customer code]"
For example, "Take b20 l88 se1234".

Returning a bike is just as easy with replacing "Take" with "Return".

Each bike and lock are uniquely numbered.



Onroll is currently in or under construction in 28 cities(!) in Spain. There are so many cities and towns already using Onroll, you could say the system is "ubikequitous". The services are generally small with up to 106 bikes and 11 stations. Their services are being offered in cities such as Segovia, where electric-assist (pedalec) cycles are mixed into the offering.


image credits: El Blog Personal de Mike Chapel, AmigosDelCiclismo

Nice Ride Minnesota Moving Forward with Procurement

The following is a press release from Nice Ride Minnesota:

"Nice Ride Minnesota, a nonprofit organization created to run a new bike-share system in Minneapolis, received funding authorization today from the Federal Highway Administration. This decision enables Nice Ride Minnesota to proceed with procurement of bikes and bike-share kiosks, keeping the organization on track to launch its bike-share system this spring. Nice Ride Minnesota will receive a grant of $1.75 million through Bike/Walk Twin Cities, a program created through the 2005 federal highway bill to fund innovative bike and pedestrian projects. The City of Minneapolis has been a key partner in the funding effort. Nice Ride Minnesota released a preliminary Request for Proposals in September. That RFP is now published in final. To read the RFP and learn more about Nice Ride Minnesota, go to www.niceridemn.com."

Way to go, Nice Ride! MetroBike, LLC worked with Nice Ride Minnesota over the past few months and during this time I learned more about this exciting new program and the people who are making it possible. Minneapolis is in for a treat when Nice Ride Minnesota launches next year.

Copenhagen Bike-Share Competition

Winners of the Copenhagen Bike-Share Competition

The City of Copenhagen announced the winners of the open competition to design a new Bike-sharing program for the city that has had bike-sharing since 1995. The competition originally announced in September had a November 18, 2009 submission deadline. See the Bike-sharing Blog post. First Prizes go to OPEN BIKE by Lots Design, Koucky & Partners and Green Idea Factory from Sweden and Germany and myloop by Thomas Coulbeaut from Japan. See all the fascinating entries at CPH Bike-Share Competition

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

Fog Rolls in on Outdoor Advertising-based Bike-sharing in the U.S.

The outdoor advertising model of financing bike-sharing programs in the United States became foggy recently with Clear Channel Outdoor pulling out of its exclusive rights for a bike-sharing service of 1,275 bikes in San Francisco, according to reports in SF Streetblog and SF Gate. Clear Channel Outdoor has a two year old lucrative contract with San Francisco to place advertising on transit shelters on public space.

Speaking of the cost of the bike-sharing service, Catherine Carr of Clear Channel Outdoor said, "It's a very expensive program, and in this economy, Clear Channel is not in a viable position to put out millions of dollars," The outdoor advertising model is one in which the proceeds of selling ad space on free-standing panels or panels on bus shelters, pay the cost of a bike-sharing service.

As the fog dissipates on this subject, The Bike-sharing Blog will keep you informed.

image: Inhabitat

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

Around the Bike-sharing World for December 2009

BIXI goes into hibernation. Montréal’s harsh winters and the threat of snow remove bike-sharing from the streets of the city for five months. Yesterday was the last day of BIXI in 2009. Their press release stated, "Currently, it is no longer possible to rent a bike, but users can continue to bring their bikes to the various stations still available in the coming days." This video explains the station removal process.

StadtRAD is rolling strong in Hamburg, Germany. This Call a Bike affiliate has 1,000 bikes, but is a bit different because it has 85 stations all with self-serve kiosk. Customers may sign up and rent through the kiosk or the regular Call a Bike telephone method. This hybrid system has been very successful with 223,000 trips having been taken in the first three months.

Handlebar lock on Breezy Rider

The winds of mid-October brought Breezy Riding bike-sharing to Daejon, Korea. This is the second program in South Korea. For a city of 1.5 million, this is a very small system with 200 bikes and 20 stations, but the electronics on these bikes make it very big in interest. The bikes have an electronic locking system on the handle bars. Registration is on-line and the city's value added transit card can be used for payment. A good overview of the system is at Breezy Riding One and Breezy Riding Two. According to the Korea Times, now even Seoul is considering bike-sharing for 2011.

image credits: BIXI, StadtRAD, and Socius

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

Spinning Wheels of the Gray Are Now Spinning Gold for JCDecaux

According to a City of Paris press release, on Monday the City Council of Paris approved a new contract with JCDecaux for the Vélib’ bike-sharing system. The last year and a half have seen stressful negotiations between JCDecaux, the giant street furniture advertising company, and the City of Paris—the joint operators of the wildly successful bike-sharing program. The new contract gives a larger financial return to JCDecaux.

Since the program began, there have been more than 61 million bike rentals. In the original contract, 12% of the subscription and rental income went to JCDecaux, while Paris reaped hefty benefits. Now when the rental income goes beyond €14 million, JCDecaux gets 35% of the amount above that level. When the rental income reaches €17 million, they receive 50% of the income above that level. This new financial incentive will give JCDecaux more reasons to maintain the bikes, give better service, and increase the number of customers. They also must decrease the customer service response time to no more than two minutes by phone, plus share location status and maintenance statistics with Paris in real time. In addition, if more than 4% of the bikes suffer irreparable damage, Paris will pay a replacement cost of €400 each up to a maximum of 25% of the fleet. In return, JCDecaux must give detailed reports on the damage to bikes.

It is hoped that this will give a realistic picture of the shrinkage and maintenance problems of the fleet. Now that Vélib’ has expanded to the first outer ring of the Parisian suburbs, the City and JCDecaux are looking at this new contract to help the system become even more prosperous.

image credit: Streetsblog

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org