Mega Being Redefined by Hangzhou

Paris' Velib' defined the first mega bike-sharing program with 20,600 bikes in the city and another 3,000 bikes in the suburbs for a total of 23,600 bikes in the metropolitan area. Alert reader Xin Zhou from George Mason University has informed The Bike-sharing Blog that Hangzhou, China is in the process of redefining the mega program with its plans to expand its existing program to 50,000 bikes and 2,000 stations by the end of the year, according to The China Internet Information Center. With 50,000 bikes, "[p]eople will find one service outlet every 100 meters downtown," states the article. Presently, stations in Paris are roughly every 300 meters.

" 'Public bicycle outlets will become as popular as public telephone booths along streets. In the future, residents will largely ride bicycles to go shopping in food markets and supermarkets, or to go to the office,' said Lu Zhihong, deputy general manager of the Hangzhou Public Transport Corporation.

The state-owned Hangzhou Public Bicycle Transport Service Development Co. Ltd., which "is responsible for buying bicycles, setting out service outlets, and employing staff" has a new take on their proprietary bike-sharing system. A point-of-sale machine is imbedded into the bike. "Our leasing system is more convenient than that in Europe," said Zhihong.

Healthy competition is always a good thing.

image credit: Shanghai Daily

UPDATE 8/3/09: Due to a translation error, the point-of-sale machine "imbedded into the bike" as described above is not actually part of the bike, but rather it is adjacent to the bike in a system that resembles Velib'. (Although the former method would be much cooler.) Customers may use the program's "Z card" or local transport "IC card" to rent a bike. Credit cards are not accepted on the system, rather only pre-paid cards.

The TIGER Roars in Washington, D.C.

The Washington, D.C. region's Transportation Planning Board today approved a $10M grant request for a regional bike-sharing program as part of a package of transit projects to improve mobility in the region. The multi-modal, multi-jurisdictional package includes bus rapid transit better connecting the suburbs to the central business district using Federal stimulus funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's (ARRA) TIGER (Transportation Improvements Generating Economic Recovery) program. Should the Federal Transit Administration approve the grant, the urban core of the Washington, D.C region, which also includes Arlington and Alexandria, Virginia; and Bethesda and Silver Spring, Maryland would receive funding for about 1,600 bikes and 160 stations. Jurisdictions outside of the urban core also requested to be part of this grant application.

A regional bike-sharing program would provide Washingtonians another fast, green, and healthy way to get around town, while encouraging additional bus, subway, and train trips. Along with providing a new transit network in its own right, bike-sharing also extends the reach of these complementary transit modes by offering an easy way to reach these stations with a relatively low-cost "first mile/last mile" solution.

According to The Examiner, "Chris Zimmerman, who is a voting member on the board [from Arlington County], said he thinks the bike system will help make local public transportation complementary. 'It's the synergy among those things that are so important,' Zimmerman said. 'It encourages people to adapt to lifestyles other than getting in a car and driving somewhere.' "

As Washington, D.C. was the first to have a 3rd generation bike-sharing program in North America and Arlington, Virginia is rushing to be the third (after Montreal), the Washington region hopes to create a model for other North American regions wanting to implement multi-jurisdictional bike-sharing programs of their own.

Washington, D.C.-based MetroBike, LLC (the provider of The Bike-sharing Blog) is proud to assist Arlington and the region in progressing towards a full-scale regional bike-sharing service.

image: Treehugger

Vélib' Rides into Two Years in the Bike-sharing World

In Paris today, the second anniversary of bike-sharing with Vélib' was celebrated. On 15 July 2007, the system started with 1000 bikes in 750 stations and kept its promise of having 20,000 bikes in 1,450 stations by the end of the year. It greets its second anniversary with 24,000 bikes and 1800 stations serving Paris and its immediate suburbs. With 54,000,000 usages in two years, Vélib’ is the gold standard in Public Use Bicycles. On average, during the last two years, every day 9500 single or seven day subscriptions were sold from the stations on the street.

image: francesoir.fr

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

Kickin' it into High-gear this Summer in Montreal

BIXI has become so popular in Montreal that the city will be expanding its bike-sharing service from 3,000 to 5,000 bikes ahead of time. The expansion was to occur next year, but due to the program's successes and the public demand, Phase II of adding 2,000 more bikes into unserved parts of the city will be done this summer. The following is a press release from Stationnement de Montréal, the operator of BIXI:

"In response to numerous requests from Montréal boroughs and residents, Stationnement de Montréal has been authorized by the city’s executive committee to launch phase II of BIXI this summer.

"This second phase will involve adding 2,000 BIXI bikes and 100 new stations in the boroughs of Mercier/Hochelaga‐Maisonneuve, Côte‐des‐Neiges/Notre‐Dame‐de‐Grâce, Villeray/Saint‐Michel Parc‐Extension, and Le Sud‐Ouest. More stations will also be added in Outremont and Rosemont‐ La Petite‐Patrie to complete the deployment in those boroughs. In all, the service will count 5,000 bikes distributed among 400 stations.

"With this second phase, the project budget increases from $15 million to $23 million.

"When the project was launched this spring, Montrealers immediately took ownership of the service. In just seven weeks, they have made more than 220,000 individual trips covering over a million kilometres. “Adding more bikes and stations will allow us to serve a larger percentage of the public and to be present in more high‐traffic areas, such as near educational institutions, public markets, and tourist attractions such as the Biodome,” declared Alain Ayotte, executive vice‐president of Stationnement de Montréal.

“ 'We are extremely pleased by the resounding success of this project, in which we believed from the very start,' declared Jean Simon, president, Primary Metal – North America. “We are delighted to be part of this innovative service, which helps make Montréal an even more enjoyable place to live and work. Our support of BIXI is in line with Rio Tinto Alcan’s commitment to environmental sustainability and fighting climate change.”

Update: Good news: In the almost two months of service, the over 225,000 BIXI trips were taken by almost 47,000 users of which over 6,300 are long term subscribers.
Not so good news: At a recent inspection of 10% of BIXI stations by reporters of La Presse, they found 1 in 5 bikes in disrepair and some docking racks vandalized and unusable. Stationnement de Montréal says that it has technicians out daily.

image credit: The Monitor (ironically from an article titled "The West End to remain Bixi-less until next year")

Bike-sharing as sweet as Swiss Chocolate

With world renowned precision, the Swiss are beginning bike-sharing in the cities along Lake Geneva. The first part of the system opened last week in Lausanne, Lausanne Roule, and will have 165 bikes in 14 stations in three municipalities by July 15th and 370 bikes by the fall. At Vevey for those who have a sweet tooth, there are bike stations at the International Headquarters of the chocolate giant Nestlé. Switzerland is a confederation of cantons or states; it appears that Swiss bike-sharing is being set up as a confederation of systems. The national subscription RFID (radio frequency identification) Card of Lausanne Roule can be used in the member cities of Suisse Roule: Geneva, Bern, Neuchâtel and Zurich. Not all these cities have 3rd generation systems yet, most are run manually. The news service, 24 Heures , reports that in the Lausanne program, the first 30 minutes of use is free, then each subsequent hour is CH₣ 1 (a little less than US$1.00). The regional daily subscription is CH₣ 5, the monthly is CH₣ 15 and the yearly is CH₣ 35. For national use, the yearly subscription is CH₣ 50.

The bikes are specifically designed for Switzerland and carry advertising. Unlike most bike-sharing bikes, there is a basket in the rear rather than in the front. The docking stations are a similar system to the Italian Bicincitta. Suisse Roule is set up as a nonprofit agency. It has both government and private sponsorship. Three quarters of its revenue comes from the ad sales on the bikes and user fees.

Watch the building of the system:

Images: 24 Heures
Video: Suisseroule

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

Washington Bike-sharing Survey Results Are In

The Washington, D.C. SmartBike program survey results are now complete and the District of Columbia Department of Transportation is kind to share them with The Bike-sharing Blog readers. The SmartBike D.C. program is nearly one year old with its birthday coming up in August. Of the 1,000 or so members of the program, 333 responded to the survey. The SmartBike D.C. program is in its pilot stage with 120 bikes, so these results may not broadly apply to other programs, but the data is interesting nonetheless.

A few points I found particularly interesting:

Question #2: A majority of the respondents use the bikes less than once per week (62%). This is likely due to the lacking availability of stations. With only 10 stations in the pilot program, most of the respondents find their needs not met as station coverage is poor. However, about a third use the bike 1 - 3 times per week (28%).

Question #3: A majority of respondents use the bikes for social purposes (48%) while commuting is the second most common use (41%).

Question #4: Nearly 70% of bike-sharing trips would have been done by foot had the bikes not been available. However, bike-sharing pulled 16% of the respondents away from driving a personal car for their trip and 19% away from a taxi.

Question #7: Trips combining bike-sharing and the subway or bus was low. A smartcard usable on all three systems, like the D.C. region’s SmarTrip card, could improve these numbers. Also, more stations at transit-accessible and non-transit accessible locations could improve this.

Question #8: 60% already own a bike and 40% don't own a bike. This affirms the belief that people with bikes would use the system. Also, with 40% not owning a bike, bike-sharing is creating bike trips that otherwise wouldn't be made.

This first survey of a 3rd generation bike-sharing program in North America is helpful in guiding its growth and that of other programs. Overall, it says that bike-sharing is working on this side of the pond too and that’s good news.

UPDATE 7/12/10: The results are now here.
image credit: Gwadzilla

Bike-share as Art

The prototype bicycle for Veloway’s new bike-sharing system has its art début today in the exhibit Bicycle: people + ideas in motion Philadelphia at The Galleries at Moore College of Art and Design.

The new bike-sharing system has its street début as Vélo Bleu next month in Nice, France. This system is the progressive evolution of Veloway’s OYBike in the United Kingdom and GreenBike at a university in Illinois. The system has solar powered stations with a multi use cable lock system for station docking or securing the bike while in use. The bikes are accessed by either a subscriber RFID card or by mobile telephone. If over the summer you are in Philadelphia come see the bike at Moore, or if you are so lucky to be on the Côte d’Azur take a spin on a Vélo Bleu.

Vélo Bleu starts on July 17. Sign-up after June 22 at VeloBleu.org.

Image: Veloway

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

Canadians think BIXI Bike-sharing a Capital Idea

Just four weeks after its inauguration in Montréal, the BIXI bike-sharing system began a 4 month trail of 50 bikes in 4 stations in Ottawa, Canada’s capital city on June 8, 2009. Canada News reports, that the program — which allows residents, workers and visitors in the National Capital Region to travel in a greener way — is also part of a feasibility study for a permanent bike share program which would bring 300 to 500 shared bikes to the region next year. At CDN$3.00 for a daily pass, BIXI Ottawa-Gatineau is a bargain compared to Montréal’s BIXI CDN$5.00 daily pass.

Even at CDN$5.00, 22,000 of the 75,000 trips on BIXI has been by casual or non subscriber riders since the start on May 12^th. There are now almost 4000 yearly subscribers. With around 4500 daily trips in the system, it has a healthy 3.45 usages per bike per day!

Canadians on the west coast are also getting a BIXI “fixie” this weekend in Vancouver. From Friday June 12^th through Monday June 15^th there is a hands-on BIXI demonstration near the Science World geodesic dome.

Image: BIXI Ottawa-Gatineau
Statistic Public Bike Systems

Russell Meddin www.bikesharephiladelphia.org

Parisians Still Find Vélib’ Liberating

Results of the second annual Vélib’ survey in the June 2009 Vélib’ newsletter

What:
50,000,000 usages since start in July 2007
6,000,000 single day passes
170,000 yearly subscriptions
23,900 bicycles in service by the end of the 2009

Why:
94% of the users of Vélib’ are satisfied with the service.
90% stressed the ease of use and the price.
84% like swiping the subscription card rather than entering in numbers to access a bike.
54% are dissatisfied with the condition of the bikes - as a result, a new public service advertising campaign against Vélib’ vandalism has begun
56% are satisfied with the availability of bikes, but only 42% are satisfied with the availability of empty racks when returning a bike.
The best reasons for using Vélib’: 90% said it reduces pollution and it makes it is easier to get around, 86% said it helps complete the trip when using public transportation, 85% said it is good for their health and 69% noted the cost.

Where:
64% of the users are Parisians 36% live outside the city limits including the suburbs and visitors to the city.

Who:
18% are 16-25 years old, 37% are 26-35 years old, 23% are 36-45 years old and 22% are 46 and over.
Yearly subscribers are about 60% male and 40% female with 27% of them using Vélib’ as their principal mode of transportation.
Single day and seven day subscribers are close to 60% female and 40% male. 46% of users are less likely to use their car up from 28% last year.

When:
24% of usage is between 9 PM and 3 AM.
27% of subscribers go to work or school only with Vélib’.
Intermodal commuting to work or school in conjunction with other methods of public transport: 28% use Vélib’ to get to public transport, 28% use Vélib’ from public transport to their destination and 23% use Vélib’ to transfer between public transport.

image: Vélib’ newsletter

Russell Meddin www.bikesharephiladelphia.org

Rome’s Tumultuous Affair with Bike-sharing

The on again off again love affair with bike-sharing in Rome is on again. As of today, June 1, 2009, Roma’n’Bike was taken over by Rome’s Public Transport Company, Azienda Tranvie ed Autobus del Comune di Roma (ATAC) and rechristened, “atac bikesharing.” This odyssey chronicled in this blog: November 15, 2007: Roam around Rome, June 16, 2008 Bon Giorno, Roma and March 14, 2009 Cemusa closes Roma’n’Bike has been played out like a romance novel. Cemusa, the international advertising company is the jilted suitor, Rome’s Mayor, Gianni Alemanno embraces Bike-sharing then gives it the “cold shoulder,” while the citizens of Rome's efforts to nurture and grow the program have further embellished the story.

The new system will be strictly pay as you go! Expanded to operate 24 hours a day, each ½ hour is €0.50 with an initial €5.00 registration fee. There is no time gratis and are no subscription fees according to Wanted in Rome, an English language Roman information site. Not all are happy about losing the 30 minute free initial ride; inflammatory comments such as “the death of bike-sharing” are seen in the Italian Bike-Sharing Roma blog. Rather than the death of bike-sharing, this is another example of the trend to fund bike-sharing through a municipality or a service in the municipality. In Nice, France the regional government is funding the system. In Montréal, Canada the parking authority funds the system.

Update: July 23, 2009 - There are 150 ATAC bikes in 19 stations. The locations are: Arenula, Argentina, Campo dei Fiori, Colonna, Fontana di Trevi, Navona, Oratorio, Piazza dell'Oro, Pantheon, Parlamento, Pontefici, Popolo, S. Andrea della Valle, San Silvestro, Scrofa, Sforza Cesarini, Spagna, Tritone and Venezia

image credit: Roma'n'Bike & atac bikesharing

Russell Meddin www.bikesharephiladelphia.org

Montréalers are taking to BIXI

For two weeks now Montréalers have experienced BIXI bike-sharing. Here are some of the first statistics:
- There about 2250 subscribers to the system.
- Through May 28, 738 bikes have been dispursed over 144 stations with a ratio of about 2 racks per bike.
- Almost 26,900 trips have been taken on BIXI of which 11,000 have been non-subscription casual users (or about 2.2 trips per bike per day). This is higher than the smaller Washington, D.C. system which earns around 1.5 trips per bike per day, but less than 7 trips per bike per day in the Lyon and Paris systems.

There have been a few growing pains as the system strides to its goal of 3,000 bikes with 300 stations in the central core of Montréal by June 7. During the first days, the National Post reports that bikes were locked in place because of erroneous or mischievious "repair required" indications. Comments of difficulty in taking a bike more than once on a day pass were expressed on the blog spacingmontréal, which showed that more explanation is sometimes needed.

To solve the confusion of the day membership, BIXI made this video:
The Bike-sharing Blog hopes to keep you up to date on the BIXI experiment.

Photo: The Chonicle

Video: BIXI

Statistic Public Bike Systems

Russell Meddin www.bikesharephiladelphia.org

Transit Taking Transit

Equal distribution of bikes is one of the hardest nuts to crack with bike-sharing, especially if your program has 20,600 bikes. The creative minds of Vélib' have developed a formidable solution to this problem - take a bus!

Starting May 4, the first of two Vélib' buses began transporting bikes from stations with an over-supply to those in need. The buses hold 62 bikes each, which is nearly three times more than the trucks which are used now for smaller stations. Staff simply walk the bikes onto the bus and with the use of a pulley system, raise one bike at a time, and send it to the other end of the bus via a roller system to keep the bikes compact during transport.

Here's a video showing how it works:

by mairiedeparis

Another reminder that bike-sharing complements other forms of transit and is complemented.

Image credit: Vélib'

Paul DeMaio, MetroBike
Russell Meddin, www.bikesharephiladelphia.org

Melbourne Tender Out

The Victoria, Australia Department of Transport released a Request for Tender (RFT) to find an operator of a bike-sharing program for Melbourne. According to the Department of Transport's website, "The Public Bicylce [sic] System will provide bicycle stations in key locations around inner Melbourne and give the public access to bicycles from the system 365 days a year, for short, inner-city trips. The total system, upon start up will have about 600 bicycles within the inner city."

A briefing session will be Monday at 10am for parties interested in learning more. The tender closes on June 18.

p.s. - The bike-sharing program operator should also include a spellcheck program in their tender for the Dept. of Transport to help them spell "Bicycle" correctly. Of course, we here at The Bike-sharing Blog never make a misspellin.

image credit: Tulane University

UPDATE - August 6, 2009:

JCDecaux pulled out of bidding for Melbourne’s bike-sharing tender competition. Steve O’Connor of JCDecaux Australia says that the Melbourne plan for 600 bikes is too small and lacked commercial incentives according to Australia’s The Age. JCDecaux won the tender for Brisbane’s 2000 bike system and is currently installing the program there.

The Bike-sharing Blog Turns 2

Happy Birthday to The Bike-sharing Blog! It turns 2 today. If The Blog were a child, it would be a toddler already.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes this stage of life as, "During this time, your child is becoming increasingly more mobile, and aware of himself and his surroundings. During this stage, your toddler will show greater independence, begin to show defiant behavior, [...] and imitate the behavior of others, especially adults and older children."

Much of the same can be said of bike-sharing in general: it assists people in becoming more mobile and aware of themselves and their surroundings. Bike-sharing is helping people show greater independence away from the automobile. We are showing defiant behavior by denying the status quo of automobile-dominated societies and launching ourselves into the post-carbon age. We are imitating the behavior of greener societies which have placed greater demands on the mobility and flexibility that bicycling offers and are receiving the benefits of being healthier societies, or of one day striving to become one.

Your contributions about local bike-sharing activities have been tremendous and enhanced The Blog's efforts towards advocating for bike-sharing around the world. Thank you for your continued interest in bike-sharing and The Bike-sharing Blog.

Sincerely,
Paul DeMaio
MetroBike, LLC
Washington, D.C., USA

Velo-city 2009 and Villo!

I've recently returned from the Velo-city 2009 conference in Brussels, Belgium where I spoke in a session dedicated to bike-sharing. The packed session had presentations by:

- Esther Anaya, Bicicleta Club de Catalunya (BACC), Spain, speak about "Public Bikes, are they developing as true public transport in Spain?";
- Sara Basterfield and German Dector-Vega, CTC and Transport for London, UK, spoke about "Bike-sharing in European Cities"; and
- Jean-Sébastien Decaux, JCDecaux, France, spoke about "Public bicycles in Brussels. Why they have a future?".

My presentation was titled "Bike-sharing: its History and Future" and can be downloaded now. The others' presentations should be available on the Velo-city website in two weeks. Each presentation was insightful and well worth a view.

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While in Brussels I got to see the preparations for the relaunch of Villo!, the region's new and improved bike-sharing program. The program got off to a poor start a few years ago, however, now it's coming back with a greater number of bikes and stations to tame this city of autos. The reincarnated program will have 2,500 bikes at 180 stations and will be available in the 16 cities of the Brussels capital region. The service will be offered year-round by JCDecaux through an advertising contract.

The bike facilities in Brussels are decent, with cycle tracks and bike lanes. However, these facilities generally they aren't being used. Offering bike-sharing on this greater scale will provide a solid option in moving about the compact medieval city and its surroundings to make a dent in the auto-centric behavior and begin to foster a bike culture.