CitiBank Sponsorship opens new branch in Miami for CitiBike

The Bike-sharing World, First Week of October 2014

USA:

CitiBank has found that sponsoring bike-sharing is good for business. It now has signed up to be the title sponsor for DecoBike in both Miami Beach and Miami, Florida.

CitiBank and DecoBike announced today that the combined Miami Beach and soon to launch Miami, Florida bike-sharing programs will be called CitiBike. This is in addition to New York City's bike-share service which operates under the same name. CitiBike Miami's website is www.citibikemiami.com. The combined cities will have over 1,750 bikes in 170 stations. The new Miami CitiBike, opening in November will bring to South Florida a new shaft-drive bicycle and new solar powered stations with touch screen kiosks.

Last year in a Digiday article about CitiBank sponsoring bike-share, Elyssa Gray of creative marketing for CitiBank indicated that after only a few months sponsoring bike-sharing that it was headed in an extremely positive direction. “People are talking about and sharing the program in such a positive way — it’s really becoming a part of the fabric of [the] City,” said Gray, “These kinds of opportunities for a brand don’t come by every day.”

In South Florida: "We are very excited to have the commitment of CitiBank as the title sponsor for our successful Miami Beach program as well as for our new expansion into the downtown Miami area and surrounding neighborhoods," says Colby Reese, co-founder of DecoBike. "Miami is an ever-growing metropolis and bike-sharing has already been embraced by our residents and visitors who have logged more than 4.5 million rides in Miami Beach, and we expect similar usage in downtown Miami and its surrounding neighborhoods."

The Bike-sharing Blog believes that title sponsors for bike-sharing programs is a policy to bank on!

image: Citibikemiami.com

Russell Meddin            bikesharephiladelphia.org

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The Bike-sharing World - Last week of January 2013

ASIA:
China:
                  Hangzhou:

Multi-position station in Hangzhou, China

January 2013 brings a report that Hangzhou now has 69,750 bicycles in 2,965 stations with 94,000,000 people riding the system annually. Yes, that is ninety-four million rides a year. If the system's owner, the Hangzhou Public Bicycle Transportation Services Development Company Limited, gets one yuan ($0.16 USD) for each one of those rides, well, it is a lot of cash. Now, if those riders need cash, Hangzhou Public Bicycle will make it easy for them! The company just reached an agreement to lease space at their bike stations to the Guangdong Development Bank for Automatic Teller Machines (ATM). Five of the ATMs are already installed according to Hangzhou.com. 

China seems to be leading the world in ideas of integrating multiple uses for their bike-sharing stations. This is a great example of synergy of services for the system's users. There are electric bicycle charging hook-ups at some stations in the city of Wuhan. Many Chines cities now have bike-sharing stations that double as bus shelters. The more attractions there are for bike-sharing users, the more bike-sharing becomes attractive and used.


NORTH AMERICA:
USA:
                New Orleans:

SUPER BOWL XLVII  at the Superdome

Bike-sharing will be making a pass to the over 70,000 spectators going to the Super Bowl in New Orleans, Louisiana. From January 30 through February 3, Entergy, Bike Easy, and the Downtown Development District are bringing B-Cycle to New Orleans so residents and visitors can try out bike-sharing while enjoying the Big Easy festivities for Super Bowl XLVII. 

Both of the opposing football team's home cities, San Francisco and Baltimore are planning bike-sharing systems for 2013, so this will be good exposure for the sports fans. It also is a good way to excite the local residents to start a systems next to the mighty Mississippi. B-cycle will set up two stations and have bikes available at no charge. They hope that at least the first 49er users will start ravens about bike-sharing!

                       Anaheim:

Last week the Los Angeles basin got its first taste of multi-station bike-sharing. After a long waiting period, Bike Nation brought three stations into operation in Anaheim, California.

                        Miami:

Miami, Florida's City Council welcomed Decobike to travel across the Causeway from Miami Beach to set up stations in Downtown Miami. This system will probably be deployed fairly quickly.

                        Austin:
At the same time as Miami's City Council OK'd bike-sharing, so did Austin, Texas's City Council. They gave the non-profit organization, Bike Share of Austin the go ahead to deploy 400 bikes in 40 stations in this capital city of Texas.


Update:

EUROPE:
Hungary:

                      Budapest:

Since the residents of Budapest are starving to have Bike-sharing, Budapesti Közlekedési Központ (BKK) the consulting firm for the bike-sharing project, will sponsor another information session on January 30, 2013 for prospective vendors and operators . More information is at BKK.

images Hangzhou, Superdome.

The World:

The Bike-sharing World Map is the #1 resource for bike-sharing systems. It shows new systems coming online which might not be covered in The Bike-sharing Blog. With over 3 million page views and constant updates, it is known as the best way to keep up with the ever changing bike-sharing world.

Russell Meddin              bikesharephiladelphia.org

DecoBike a concession to the Art Deco of Miami Beach

Today in Miami Beach, Florida, an experiment in bike-sharing begins. DecoBike starts its operation in what is considered the crossroads of North and South America. A city of almost 90,000 people will have 1,000 DecoBikes in 100 DecoStations making it the service with the best ratio of bikes to population in the Americas. DecoBikes takes its name as a nod to the Art Deco buildings along the beach.

The service is not part of a street furniture contract, nor is it run by a non-profit that oversees operations for the city, nor it is a public-private scheme, nor is it a publicly owned and funded system. It will be one of the few services set up totally as a private venture as it is run as a concession within the city. In fact, as a private venture, the company already has all of the DecoBikes sponsored by KLM-Air France to publicize its upcoming new air service from Miami to the world bicycle capital, Amsterdam!

With a concentration of stations, the service is made to work for both residents of Miami Beach and the many tourists that seek its Art Deco hotels and warm beaches. The pricing for using the service differs from most other bike-sharing programs. For residents, the longest term for a membership is monthly at $15. There is no yearly membership. For both residents and tourists, there is a daily access pass for $14, a 3-day access pass for $30 and a special 5-day access pass for $49. All of these passes allow unlimited trips during the term with each trip 30 minutes or less at no charge. Each additional 30 minutes is billed at $4. The stations not only allow sign-ups for access passes, but also allow the borrowing of a DecoBike on an hourly basis. The hourly rate is thirty minutes for $4, sixty minutes for $5 and 120 minutes for $10, in each case, it is a single use. Most of these options are available at the easy-to-use stations.

Now with bike-sharing in sunny Florida, those bike-sharers whose services hibernate for the winter will have a place to enjoy the beach and the bikes.

images: DecoBike

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

Bienvenidos a Miami Beach

On the beaches Rio de Janiero, bike-sharing is called the Samba. Will bike-sharing on the beaches of Miami be the Conga?

Miami Beach, Florida is expected to launch bike-sharing program using the B-cycle system with over 500 bikes in July 2009 according to Jeff Hicks, CEO of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, a partner in the B-cycle company, from an interview in Adweek.com. Theo Carrasco, procurement coordinator for Miami Beach, said the evaluation committee recommended B-cycle on December 23, 2008 for the a final decision on January 29, 2008.

The program starting in South Beach is to expand to North Beach to include all of Miami Beach. Users of the system will be able to track their personal usage online. We expect the user interface of the system to be more advanced than what is currently available in the United States. The question now is, what will be the next U.S. city to join the Conga line?

image credit: iDream_in_Infrared