The Bike-sharing World -The Second Week of July 2012

EUROPE:
France:
                         Paris

July 15, 2007 Launch Ceremony for Vélib'

The Fifth Anniversary of Vélib': 

On July 15, 2007, bike-sharing went from a little known progressive initiative in a few cities into a World Transportation Phenomenon with the introduction of Vélib'. Vélib' arrived with 11,000 bikes in 750 stations in Paris. Though Paris was not the first̶̶̶—and is now not the biggest—bike-share city, it sparked the revolution that has brought these systems to over 450* cities around the world. Within five years, Vélib' riders have accumulated 130 million trips—with average 110,000 trips every day. The system quickly expanded to 18,500 bikes in 1,700 stations to cover all of Paris and the first ring of its suburbs within 1.5 km. Now there are 224,000 annual subscribers to the system and millions and millions of day passes are sold yearly. Vélib' was modeled after vélo'v in Lyon, France. Subsequently, the Chinese mega systems, the North American bIXI and B-cycle systems and the big European systems were all modeled after Vélib'. World bike-sharing success owes a lot to the success of Vélib'.
Bon Anniversaire!


                          Lyon

 

Vélo'v takes top honors as Europe's best bike-sharing service. 

The German Automobile Club, ADAC, did a survey of 40 bike sharing systems in the European countries: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland,  Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The survey said, Lyon's vélo'v is #1.

Testing of the systems was performed in May 2012 as part of the ADAC program for advising travelers. Each system was evaluated on Accessibility (35% of the evaluation), Directions (26%), Ease of use (25%) and Quality of the bikes (14%). Each of these categories had the following choices: Very Good, Good, Acceptable, Poor and Very Poor. Paris' Vélib' came in second overall.


Spain:
                        Valencia

Valenbisi on Monday afternoon July 16, 2012 starts offering supplemental insurance to its bike-share riders. This is in addition to the regular insurance that Valenbisi carries for every rental.  For an additional €9 ($11 US) subscribers can purchase liability and accident insurance. This will cover the insured for any third party bicycling incidents within the city limits of Valencia. The policy pays claims that are brought against Valenbisi and/or against the user by a third party or parties involved in the incident. The claim maximums are: personal injury caused to third parties: €300,000 ($367,200 US) per claim, property damage caused to third parties: €50,000 ($61,200 US) per claim. In addition, there is compensation in the event of accidental death: up to €30,000 ($36,700 US), and compensation for permanent disability by an accident: up to €60,000 ($73,450 US.) This could be a very good precedent for all bike-sharing systems. It is possibly a best practice to emulate.

NORTH AMERICA:
USA:
               Charlotte, North Carolina

Bike-sharing in the United States got a kick start with the Humana Freewhelin' first generation systems at the 2008 National Presidential Conventions in Denver, Colorado and Minneapolis, Minnesota. As a result, Nice Ride Minnesota and Denver B-cycle are flourishing.
Now, in a run up to its September 2012 Democratic National Convention, Charlotte, North Carolina launched a third generation B-cycle system on July 12, 2012. Charlotte B-cycle will have 200 bikes across 20 stations available in the Center City area within a few weeks. The system—offering only 2 pass types—is a bit pricey with a day pass at $8 and an annual subscription at $65. After the initial no charge 30 minutes, each additional 1/2 hour is $4.  

As with the the earlier 2008 Political Conventions, the Charlotte system is being mostly paid for by the health industry. Although created by the Charlotte Center City Partnership, Blue Cross Blue Shield North Carolina is the lead sponsor of the system with Carolinas HealthCare System and Verizon sponsoring a smaller portion.


The Charlotte media is calling Charlotte B-cycle the first major bike-sharing system in North Carolina and the largest in the Southeast. That title of the largest should have been applied to The Chattanooga Bike Transit System, in Tennessee. Unfortunately, that system, originally scheduled to begin on April 25, 2012, still isn't open for public use. 


* The Bike-sharing World Map
images: Vélib' vélo'v JCDeacaux #1 El Mundo, WFAE FM and Charlotte B-cycle

Russell Meddin     bikesharephiladelphia.org

The Bike-sharing World: First Week of April 2011

Velib'

Europe: The Price of Success

On April 15th, with the approval of the Parisian City government, a revised rate structure for Vélib' begins with many good additions. The current annual subscription of 29€ ($41.50 US) with the first 30 minutes free each time the bike is used remains the same. A new 39€ ($55 US) subscription with 45 free minutes instead of 30 free minutes will induce suburban users to ride longer to work, school, or even further into the city. There is an advantageous subscription for young people under 26 years of age which gives them 45 minutes free instead of the 30 minutes free, but at the same price of 29€ per year subscription. Also there is a new scholastic tariff for students under 26 years of age which affords them a discount of 10€ off the price of a regular annual subscription. A new "formula touristic" allows people holding a credit card without a "chip" (that is most North Americans) to register online or at certain outlets (hotel, tourist office, etc.) in Paris for the 1-day or 7-day pass. The single 1-day pass is now the same price as a single one-way Paris Metro or bus trip 1.70€. This is excellent pricing for making an effective cost connection between bike-sharing and other forms of public transit. The 7-day pass is 8€ ($11.50US). The Vélib' web site will be more user-friendly making it easier to subscribe for all levels, from daily to annuals, online and for users to find locations to activate memberships and download maps. With almost 100,000,000 Vélib' trips since July 15, 2007 this programs success has been priceless.

North America: Bike-sharing wakes up from a long winter's nap

With in the next week, both Montréal' s bIXI and Minneapolis' Nice Ride will be back on the streets after hibernating for the winter. Nice Ride plans on starting its second season on April 11 with eight new stations in north Minneapolis and plans to have 100 stations this summer to include service in downtown St. Paul. They are offering a great way to shake off the cold Minnesota snow with a special limited time $40 annual subscription sale that is $20 off the regular price . bIXI will open its 400 stations in Montréal on April 15. The last few weeks have seen the stations back in places all over their service area. Five new stations are planned for an expansion of the system into Westmount this season. Les Montréaleurs are ready to roll. Capital Bikeshare, however, has beaten winter by rolling throughout the cold months creating scores of winter weather warriors.

images: Bike-sharing Blog, Nice Ride, and bIXI

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

The Economies of Being Environmentally Conscious

Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the U.S. recently showed a program on bike-sharing in a series called e² which is "about the economies of being environmentally conscious." The synopsis: "Paris’ ambitious public-private Vélib’ bike initiative encourages residents to forgo cars for bikes and public transportation. In the process, the program has fostered a unique popular culture, complete with its own language, jokes and pick-up lines. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe has undoubtedly taken heart: Its success has inspired cities like Rome, San Francisco and London to begin adopting similar programs of their own."

A 3-minute excerpt from the program is available. The 30-minute program can also be streamed on-line. From the link, click on Webcasts and then Paris: Velo Liberte'.

image credit: e²

Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Velib'? Hmmm, No.

Streetfilms produced this interesting video about Velib' - the largest bike-sharing program in the world. Eric Britton of the New Mobility Agenda, and Celine Lepault and Didier Couval of the City of Paris discuss their city's phenomenal bike-sharing program. Britton states that it's more than a coincidence that the rise of bike-sharing programs was timed with the world's increased concern about global warming, as a majority of existing bike-sharing programs have launched in the past 3 - 4 years.

I also have a catchy new soundtrack from this video which will be playing in my mind the next time I'm bike-sharing.

Vélib - le film

Bike-sharing, Parisian style!




Merci, Copenhagenize.

Random Velib' Data

I shall call today's post "Random Velib' Data". In a recent email exchange with a Paris official, I learned about the following points regarding trips and subscriptions. There are a few surprising notes here.

Number of trips:

- In 6 months (July 15, 2007 - January 15, 2008) there have been 13.4 million trips or about 75,000 trips/day.

- Trips are highly weather-dependent. When the weather is cold and wet, Velib’ has 30,000 trips/day. When the weather is nice, Velib’ can have up to 140,000 trips/day.

- A large percentage of the overall trips are for commuting purposes.

- 25% of trips are from 9PM to 3AM. (Other transit modes run less frequently during these hours, so more reliance is placed on Velib'.)

- The average trip length is 20 minutes. This is about a 3-mile trip in an urban environment with traffic signals and stop signs.

- Only 8% of trips are greater than 30 minutes.

Number of subscriptions:

- 166,000 yearly subscriptions for $45 have been bought.

- In 6 months, about 205,000 tickets for weekly subscriptions for $7.50 and 2.5 million daily tickets for $1.50 have been bought. There is huge tourist demand.

photo credit: austinevan

Anti-competitive or Too Successful?

As reported in French newspaper, Les Echos, and Thomson Financial, Clear Channel's French subsidiary has sued the City of Paris and JCDecaux calling its practices anti-competitive. Paris has suggested expanding Velib' to its suburbs with 300 stations and 4,500 bikes, for a cost of about $10 million per year. Clear Channel's concern is that the expansion of the bike-sharing program would put them at a disadvantage because JCDecaux's Velib' is already in-use in the region. So is the problem anti-competitive or Velib' is too successful? This may be first lawsuit of its kind and undoubtedly won't be the last.

Once an advertising company provides a successful bike-sharing program in the core of a region, regardless of the region, they will have a de facto monopoly on that region. Folks from the region will come to associate the name of the bike-sharing program with the concept itself and request its expansion into their jurisdictions. As a public policy it makes most sense to have the bike-sharing network all of the same technology, rather than localized technologies that are incompatible. So there will be a political push for this as well. It would be foolish to have a small program run by Clear Channel in the Paris suburbs with a highly successful JCDecaux program in the city.

I see this as another reason governments should demand that bike-sharing be provided as a singular service, unbundled from the other services any company, especially advertisers, such as Clear Channel and JCDecaux, provide. (Barcelona did and got Clear Channel to provide Bicing. JCDecaux provides the advertising.) The two services are totally unrelated and should remain so. Advertisers are good at just that and should remain focused. Bike-sharing is a transit service and, I believe, should be provided by an organization that can keep this as their focus. There are examples of advertisers adeptly running bike-sharing programs, however, there shouldn't be any question in the future about their priority and therefore separating advertising from bike-sharing would ensure this.

Intrago

I apologize to The Bike-sharing Blog fans as I've been away on a bike-sharing trip of the United States' West Coast where a lot of bike-sharing interest exists.

While in Seattle I learned about the University of Washington's bike-sharing pilot which is to include 40 electric bikes and four stations and is to be provided by Intrago Corporation. According to Intrago's press release, Joshua Kavanagh, the new Director of Transportation Services at the University of Washington is quoted to have said, "We're very pleased to have the opportunity to work with Intrago to bring this innovative project to our campus. This new form of on-demand personal mobility will add a significant enhancement to our award-winning U-Pass program [university magnetic stripe card]. We anticipate this added incentive to further reduce the number of cars coming to campus each day as well as reduce car and truck use within our campus."

Way to go, University of Washington! This is the first 3rd generation university bike-sharing program of which I'm aware in North America. The U.K. is the only country with a former university program elsewhere. The U.K. system was linear and ceased to operate once a bus line began operating service in the same corridor. U of W's program is to be up-and-running for the Fall '08 semester.

I'm not yet familiar with Intrago's technology and I believe it's recently out of research & development or nearing it. However, I do have a concern about electric bikes. On one hand I feel that if electric bikes get more people cycling, then it's worked. On the other hand, pedal cycles are the most efficient form of transportation and the carbon footprint consists of only manufacturing the bike and replacing parts as they wear out. Electric bikes are bulkier (80+ pounds) and produce pollution to power them. There's also the added pollution of moving around the heavier bikes from station to station. The University of Washington is not too hilly, especially when compared with the rest of Seattle. The jury will be out on this issue. Intrago offers its technology for pedal cycles, so maybe this would work better for the campus.

Now over to France. With Paris' transit strike, Velib' has become immensely more popular. According to an article in The International Herald Tribune the strike has pushed the number of daily Velib' trips from 90,000 before the strike to 175,000! (That's more trips per day than a lot of bus systems.) Folks have been waiting in lines at Velib' stations, sometimes up to an hour, to take out the next bike that comes in.

image credit: Intrago Corporation

NBC Nightly News Takes Note of Bike-sharing

Paris becomes the City of Bikes

NBC Nightly News has taken note of bike-sharing. The broadcast of October 26 showcased Paris' Velib' noting just how popular it has been and how even city officials are surprised that the City of Lights would also become the City of Bikes.

One glaring error in the report was reporter, Keith Miller, explaining that "every large American city has expressed interested in bike-sharing except for San Francisco," as he's riding uphill in a Parisian neighborhood. Was this supposed to be an analogy showing why hilly San Francisco would not even consider bikes or bike-sharing? Well, this is not correct and NBC would have know this is they had viewed The Bike-sharing Blog on October 3. San Francisco is indeed getting its own bike-sharing program and has already selected the company to do it.

"Bloomberg Eyes Bike Program for Home"

An article in The New York Times titled "In Paris, Bloomberg Eyes Bike Program for Home" reports New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in Paris in late September and fascinated with Velib'. Bloomberg "acknowledged the challenges of bringing home a popular Parisian bike rental program [...] saying he was unsure it would translate to New York. Noting challenges like roads damaged by seasonal changes, the lack of bike lanes, liability problems and the possibility that commuters would not want to carry helmets to work, Mr. Bloomberg said: 'You try to see whether it fits, and some parts of it will, but it may very well give you an idea to do something totally different.' "

Yes, there are challenges, NY, but nothing that the Big Apple can't overcome.

Seasonal changes - Sure, but with bike-sharing programs all over northern climes like Helsinki, Stockholm, and Oslo; damaged roads haven't stopped them.

Liability problems - The easy solution would be to evict all of NY's lawyers. However, just in case that's not possible, insurance and waivers are needed. Also, more bike safety education and more stringently enforced traffic laws are necessary.

And fortunately for bike riders, helmets carry easily on top of one's head.

photo credit: Michael Sawyer/Associated Press

Paris Bike Mode Share Scenarios From Velib'

Andrew Curran from the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority (TransLink) provides a spreadsheet of potential scenarios that Velib' could create on bike mode share in Paris and encourages its use by others. The spreadsheet is in Excel and available for download. Says Andrew:

"Scenario #1a shows that once Paris is finished installing all 20,600 public bikes, they will have more than doubled their cycling mode share in the span of a few months – increasing by 118% (from 1.63% to 3.55%). This result assumes that each public bike will be used for the current average of 6 trips per day and that there will be no concurrent increase in private cycling trips. It also assumes that 4% of public bike trips will replace private bicycle trips and that 2% of public bike trips would not have been made otherwise. Trips being shifted away from motor vehicles (~7%), walking (~37%), and public transit (~50%) are not factored into this model since they do not affect the overall number of trips being made.

"Experience from Lyon suggests that a significant increase in private cycling trips is likely to occur as well since the public bicycle system acts as a “door opener” to increase the acceptance of cycling as an urban transport mode. If, in addition to the already-realized mode share growth described above, private cycling trips in Paris also increase by 50% (shown in Scenario #3a) - then Paris would achieve a 4.37% bike mode share representing a 168% increase over pre-July levels.

"The remainder of the scenarios (#4-10) show what would happen to mode share if the number of Velib bikes was doubled, the number of trips made per day on Velib bikes was doubled, and the number of trips made by private bicycle increased by 50%, 100%, 200%, and 400%. The final scenario shows that for a 15% mode share to be realized, the number of public bikes would need to be doubled (to 41,200), the number of trips made on each bike per day would need to be doubled (to 12), and the number of trips made by private bicycle would need to increase by 331% - or some combination thereof.

"Playing around with this very basic model (e.g. changing number of public bikes, number of trips, rate of private cycling increase) starts to give a rough sense of the scale of mode share change that could be realized through a public bike system."

Methodology and Data Sources:

· City Population 2006 & 2008 assumes current trend of 0.2% growth per year (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris#Demography)

· Trips/Day/Capita of 2.85 is about standard for large cities in Western Europe (p.11 - www.mobility-bovy.ch/pdf/BEIJING_conf.pdf)

· 2006 Bike mode share of 1.63% (p.2 - http://www.jcdecaux.com/UserFiles/File/dossier%20de%20presse%20velib.pdf)

· Recent article in The Economist reports system is clocking about 100,000 rides per day (http://economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9832847&CFID=20091423&CFTOKEN=92202690) equalling roughly 10 trips/day/public bike. I had earlier read that each public bike was averaging only 6 trips per day (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22181882-1702,00.html)

· Assumption made that 4% of public bike trips are replacing private bike trips and that 2% of public bike trips are new trips that would not have been made otherwise – as was reported from the Lyon experience (http://ange.archangelis.com/typo3/niches/fileadmin/New_folder/Deliverables/D4.3b_5.8_b_PolicyNotes/14397_pn4_public_bikes_ok_low.pdf)

· 2008 Total trips/day calculated by multiplying projected 2008 population by 2.85 and then adding the new 2,016 trips occuring due to the public bike system

· 2008 Private bike trips/day calculated by multiplying projected 2008 population by 1.63% and then subtracting the 4,032 trips that occured instead by public bike

· 2008 Total Bike Trips / Day calculated by adding Private bike trips (96,447) and Public bike trips (100,800) together

· 2008 Bike Mode Share (3.2%) calculated by dividing bike trips by total trips

Can I Ring Your Bell?

From the UK's Times Online in an article titled "Pardon, mamselle but can I ring your bell":

"If you are on the hunt for love in Paris, forget cafés and art galleries and rent a bicycle instead. Residents and visitors have found that the city’s new self-service bike scheme offers the best chance of flirting with strangers.

"The emergence of a two-wheeled mating service has been one of several unintended consequences of the runaway success of le Vélib’, the sturdy grey bicyclettes that the Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, unleashed on the streets in mid-July."

more...

Look-out on-line dating services! You've got new in-line competition. With all the matching, Velib should begin to offer tandems.

photo: TimesOnline

Velib' Video'

There's a great video about Velib' from New Zealand's TV3 titled "Bikes hoped to lessen Paris traffic woes". The video shows the bikes being used, a close-up of the locking mechanism, and the Paris transportation department's bike-sharing program manager, Celine Lepault, speaks about the program. Parisians are fortunate to have someone like Celine running the municipal aspects of Velib'. Having met with Celine in June, she was excited to practice her English with me in a discussion about the yet-to-be-launch service. Soon, with all of the interviews she has been giving, she'll be speaking English better than me.

Velib' for Tourists

An article in Sunday's Washington Post titled "Free Wheeling: Paris's New Bike System" shows tourists how to use Paris' Velib'. Make sure to bring your smart-chip Amex or Visa with you before you go.

"A major drawback for U.S. visitors is that you can sign up only with a smart-chip Visa card or an American Express card, a limitation that will leave a lot of Americans out in the cold. However, one card can be used to sign up several individuals. JCDecaux, the company running the system, says it hopes this problem will be resolved in the near future."

photo credit: The Washington Post

Paris' Popular Bike Program may Inspire Others

A glowing report was on NPR's "Weekend Edition Saturday" showcasing Velib'. The report states, "Launched in July, the 'Velib' bikes were part of the Paris mayor's idea of making the city more ecologically friendly and reducing traffic. Just two months on, the self-service bicycles have clocked some 3.7 million rides and seem to be changing the way people get around the city."

Also, Chicago had a Request for Proposals out which ended a few months ago looking for a company to provide bike-sharing service of 500 or 1,500 bikes to the city. Chicago's mayor Richard Daley visited Paris this week to go for a spin. "Daley says he thinks the bikes could work in Chicago."

photo credit: NPR

Velib' Rolls Past its Millionth Trip

According to Australian news website News.com.au, Paris's Velib' bike-sharing program has reached an important milestone after just three weeks since its launch - 1,000,000 trips have been made on the utilitarian public bicycles.

Paris's deputy mayor for transport, Denis Baupin, states that an average of 6 trips are made on each bike every day. With 10,000 bikes at the present time, it's no wonder that so many trips by bike have been made. Baupin goes on to say, "Once all the stations are up and running, Velib will be carrying as many people as the Paris tramway." How do you like that - bike transit is only 12 years old (since the launch of Copenhagen's Bycyklen in 1995) and it's maturing into a transit system with the capabilities of a tramway system, albeit relatively new as well.

The article also states the bike-sharing program has been so successful that Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe has ordered a feasability study on extending the scheme into the Paris suburbs. Look out, Copenhagen, it looks like Paris wants the title of World Bike Town.