Relaunching The Bike-sharing World Map

The Bike-sharing World Map has been the go-to global resource on bikeshare systems since 2007. I began the effort to document the growth of bikeshare systems back then to hasten their expansion around the world. However, the task soon became overwhelming as the number of new bikeshare services that had been launching at a frequency of once every couple of weeks grew to once each day. They were popping up faster than bikeshare trips on a free ride day with municipalities emulating each other because bikeshare is inexpensive to implement compared to other modes of transport, healthy for its customers, good for the environment, and it’s, well, cool!

The Bike-sharing World Map today

As I quoted Lyon, France’s mayor in the 1/21/08 blog post, “There are two types of mayors -- those who have bike-sharing and those who want bike-sharing.” Fortunately, not long after that post, Russell Meddin joined me in curating the Map and eventually became the Map’s sole curator with a substantial time commitment over his morning coffee. Since then, the Map has grown to over 3,000 entries, painstakingly added one-by-one over the past 13 years as each unique new service develops, implements, and in some cases, permanently closes.

With Russell’s untimely passing earlier this year, a void also was created in how to keep the Map going. Due to its usefulness in spreading knowledge as its 3.5 million views would suggest, we’ve put a team together to co-curate it as no one person can match Russell’s singular herculean effort. The Map’s team includes Oliver O’brien (Europe/Middle East/Africa), Renata Rabello (Central & South America), Chumin Yu (Oceania), Rahil Gupta (Asia), Institute for Transportation Development & Policy (China), Jess Seamon (U.S. & Canada), and Paul DeMaio (Mexico).

Today, we’re excited to announce that we’re relaunching The Meddin Bike-sharing World Map at bikesharingworldmap.com. To honor Russell, we’ve renamed the new Map after him.

The Meddin Bike-sharing World Map

The features of the new Map include:

• easier-to-read map to see the depth and breadth of bikeshare systems around the world;
• a search feature to find quickly what you’re looking for;
• a live count of global bikes and systems being planned, in operation, seasonal, temporarily closed, no longer operating, and never opened; and
• images of newly added systems.

Updated entry feature of the Map

If you’re aware of a new bikeshare system or changes to existing systems, you can reach us at bikesharingworldmap @ gmail.com. The Map is a labor of love for all of our team members as we donate our time for the sake of bikeshare and to continue Russell’s decade of effort.

On behalf of our international team, we hope you like The Meddin Bike-sharing World Map.

Sincerely,

Paul DeMaio

More on the North America Bike-share Industry Forum

The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) and bike-share stakeholders from around North America will convene on March 2-3, 2014 for a series of critical discussions on the state and future of the bike-sharing industry in the USA and Canada. The first day of meetings will consist of a peer-to-peer exchange for cities and non-profit operators only. The second day of the forum will seek to enhance communications among vendors and their customers, forging a common mission for a bigger, more sustainable bike-share industry. Read the press release here.

Parts of this two day event will be avaible as a webinar for those in the industry who can not come in person to Arlington, VA -- just outside of Washington, D.C. To connect to the webinar on Sunday, March 2, 2014, which is for municipal officials invovled with bike-share and non-profit and for-profit operators of bike-share services one must register in advance at: Day 1 Webinar.

To connect to the webinar on Monday, March 3, 2014 which is for vendors and their customers and potential customers invovled with bike-share services, one must register in advance at: Day 2 Webinar.

For those who need more information about bike-sharing and how to be invovled as a municipality, owner-operator, or as advocates, here are current resources besides The Bike-sharing Blog that can be helpful:

Bicycle Sharing 101

Bradley Schroeder, has just publihed a new book: Bicycle Sharing 101: Getting The Wheels Turning. If you are starting a new bike-sharing service or just need to know more, it is worth the read and to keep as a reference.

The ITDP Bike-sharing Planning Guide

The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) The Bike-Sharing Planning Guide is also a good read. There are now over 685 bike-sharing cities world-wide. This makes for a good sample from which to glean some best practices and do's and don'ts. Get a copy of this Planning Guide at: www.itdp.org/library/publications/details/the-bike-share-planning-guide.

Keep in touch with The Bike-sharing World with The Bike-sharing World Map. It is the premiere resource for information on cities with bike-sharing. The easy web address for viewing the map is www.bikesharingworld.com.

Follow the Map on Twitter@BikesharingMap

See the O'Brien Global Bike Share Map which shows real time bike usage in many cities!


Russell Meddin               bikesharephiladelphia.org

The Bike-sharing World: Last Week of September 2011

Europe:
Bike-sharing cleans up in the United Kingdom. This morning is the official launch of Bike in Bath. This 58-bike, 4-station system has been in trials in Bath, England for two weeks. Though small, it is of big interest because the system is equipped and operated by Bicincittà. This will be the first Bicincittà system in the UK and complements the 70 bike-sharing programs it operates in Italy. The system is funded by the European Union-backed Civitas Renaissance initiative, which helps cities across Europe achieve more sustainable, clean, and energy-efficient urban transport systems.

Mid-September brought a new bike-sharing program to France's 4th largest city, Lille. V'Lille merges both a self-service component and longer terms bike rentals into the same system. There are 1,100 bikes in 110 self-service stations. The system will expand in April  of next year to serve not only Lille, but the contiguous cities of Roubaix, Tourcoing, and Villeneuve-d'Ascq. 

Only around 50% of the stations have kiosks which take credit cards to sign up for the one-day or seven-day subscription on the spot. All subscription periods are available online. The costs are reasonable: a day pass is €1.40 ($1.85 US), a week is €7 ($9.40 US), and the year is €36 ($48.50 US). Go over the first free 30 minutes and it costs €1 ($1.35 US) for each additional 1/2 hour. 

Don't want a self-service bike, but one to keep and use like a personal bike without buying one? V'Lille has 3,000 bikes to rent for one month at €5 ($6.70 US), 9 months at €27 ($36.40 US), and one year at €36. The bikes can be rented with accessories like a child seat. The long-term rental bikes cannot be docked at the stations.  

North America:


Within days of the announcement of the NYC Bikeshare program, Chicago, Illinois issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a 3,000-bike system to be operational by June 2012. This RFP has a very aggressive time table to put Chicago's system on the ground close to the time of New York City's. Chicago wants to increase the size of its system to have 5,000 bikes in 500 stations within 24 months of operation. It will be entertaining to watch this bicycle race between these two cities.


November should bring two new bike-sharing programs to the United States. Broward B-cycle serving Broward County, Florida, which includes Fort Lauderdale, is readying around 200 bikes to give south Florida its second bike-sharing system. Chattanooga, Tennessee is also readying  Bike Chattanooga to launch with 300 bikes throughout 30 stations. We hope that more southern cities in the United States will not be very far behind.


images: v'lille, BBC,


Russell Meddin     bikesharephiladelphia.org

Baltimore a Charming City for Bike-sharing

Possible Baltimore B-cycle Bikes

Baltimore, Maryland is in advanced stages of negotiations with B-cycle to be the one of the next mid-Atlantic cities in the United States to bring bike-sharing to its citizens. With 250 bikes in 30 stations under discussion, the plan is to deploy the system around July 2012 in the Central Business District (CBD) and in the area just to the southeast of it. Because Baltimore is such a gracious city, with a dash of southern hospitality, the bike system will be called Charm City Bikeshare. It will complement the Charm City Circulator a free bus transit system which makes connections in the CBD. Baltimore, around 65 km (40 miles) north of Washington, DC, is close to initiating bike-sharing as well as New York City, NY is soon to announce a system to begin in spring 2012. With the New Balance Hubway spinning smoothly through Boston, MA, bike-sharing is developing in most of the major US cities in northeast corridor. Unfortunately, there will remain a gaping void in the center of this string of bike-sharing cities because one major city does not yet understand the importance of bike-sharing's role in public transportation.

Which US city has the largest bike-sharing program today? On paper it is Capital Bikeshare of Washington, DC and Arlington, VA with 1,100 bikes in 114 stations, but Nice Ride Minnesota has been expanding this summer and surpasses Capital Bikeshare with the actual number of bikes available on the streets during some days. It's like watching a pennant race between two cities. That is a baseball sports contest for our non US readers. Like baseball, that race will end in the late fall when Nice Ride goes into hibernation for the winter!


Update:  November 9, 2011, ABC News, The Baltimore City Board of Estimates approved an exclusive agreement with B-cycle to bring bike-sharing to Baltimore

original images: B-cycle PBSCo

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

Hubway Coming to Boston Area

This afternoon Boston signed the deal to bring bike-sharing to the Massachusetts Bay Area. With the goal of making a regional system, Boston will start Hubway, the name of its bike-sharing service in July with 600 bikes in 61 stations. The neighboring Cambridge, Brookline and Somerville communities are expected to join Hubway within the year and other communities to follow soon thereafter to ultimately have 5,000 bikes throughout the region with 300 stations. The system will use the Public Bike System Co. equipment, the same as in Washington, DC; Minneapolis; London; Melbourne; and Montréal. It will be operated by Alta Bicycle Share of Philadelphia which also operates the Washington, DC and Melbourne, Australia programs. The yearly subscription membership is pegged fairly high, at $85 which is $25 more a year than the comparable Nice Ride Minnesota and $10 more than Capital Bikeshare. The daily fare for casual users is the same as Minneapolis and Washington at $5.

The Boston-area athletic shoe company, New Balance, will be a major sponsor and has retained the naming rights to the system, according to a City of Boston press release. New Balance Hubway should be an interesting name for bike-sharing service considering bike balancing is a major element of every service.

image: The Bike-sharing Blog

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

Celebrating Earth Day 2010 in Denver with B-cycle

Is there no better day to start a two wheel bike-sharing revolution than on the 40th anniversary of Earth Day? Well, Denver B-cycle is giving it a spin with the launch of the largest bike-sharing system in the United States. At 12 noon mountain time on Earth Day 2010, Denver, the mile high capital of Colorado, will start its new system with over 360 bikes in 40 stations. Within weeks there will be 500 bikes in 50 stations. The goal is to have a 1000 bike system in 2011.

Already a large number of subscribers have signed up to use the system. The yearly subscription is $65 with student and senior discounts. There are $30 monthly, $20 weekly and $5 day fees. Annual subscribers get an RFID "B-card" which allows skipping the kiosk and swiping the card at the bike to use it. As usual, the first 30 minutes usage is at no charge, then the longer the bike is used, the more the fees. The system is easy to use, watch this video. Watch the Denver CBS4 newscast .

The stations use wireless communications, but some are solely solar powered, some are hard wired for power and some are a hybrid of the two depending on the amount of light available to the station. The system is run by a non profit organization, Denver Bike Sharing. To financially help support the system, sponsorships of the bicycle baskets, the stations, and even the system are offered. The presenting sponsor of the program is the health care giant Kaiser Permanente. We all know more bicycling makes for a healthier lifestyle. B-cycle, a joint venture between Trek Bicycles, the health management company Humana, and PR firm Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, has equipped the Denver bikes with a GPS system so individual users can track the health benefits and the distance of their ride. Plus, the GPS system can keep track of the bikes' routes.

Enjoy Earth Day

images: Denver B-cycle

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org