The Meddin Bike-sharing World Map - Mid-2021 Report

We're delighted to present the first report of The Meddin Bike-sharing World Map -- a well-used reference tool by researchers, planners, professionals, and the general public -- which has been online since 2007. In this publication, entitled The Meddin Bike-sharing World Map - Mid-2021 Report, you'll read about The Meddin Map's history; on-going changes; perspectives for the future; and statistics, numbers, and stories of bike-sharing systems worldwide.

Bike-sharing has been a transformative tool for cities and populations, expanding access to services and opportunities, increasing mobility, and contributing to a more sustainable urban environment. At the writing of this report, many cities seem to be leaving the COVID-19 pandemic behind, reopening their activities, and implementing changes learned from this severe global event. Bike-sharing schemes survived the pandemic and proved to be resilient and flexible enough to inspire more profound changes in how we move around and experience our cities. By August 2021, there were more than 10 million bikes shared in diverse kinds of schemes.

This report comes along with improvements to The Bike-sharing World Map itself. With the passing of Russell Meddin, an 11-year veteran of The Bike-sharing World Map and The Bike-sharing Blog, in April 2020, the Map was relaunched by a team of bike-share enthusiasts from around the world to honor his memory and body of work he contributed to the field, and it was renamed The Meddin Bike-sharing World Map. Russell was a passionate bike-sharing pioneer based in Philadelphia (USA). For many years, he worked with me to provide accurate information about systems worldwide. Russell's dedicated work created a unique database of initiatives that by itself tells the history of this transportation system in our societies.

The Report includes an international team of curators and a sponsorship from PBSC Urban Solutions that made this report possible.

We hope you enjoy the reading!


Sincerely,

Paul DeMaio and The Meddin Bike-sharing World Map team of Thiago Benicchio, Steve Chou, Oliver O’Brien, Renata Rabello, and Chumin Yu

The Bike-sharing World - First Week of August 2014

THE WORLD:

The Bike-sharing World Map, bikesharingworld.com, has surpassed 5,000,000 page views since October 2007. It is the #1 resource for information on cities with bike-sharing systems world wide. It is a catalog of operating, planned and terminated bike-sharing programs on all the continents. With constant updates, the Map is the best way to keep up with the ever changing bike-sharing world.

The five millionth bike-share viewer studied the map on July 30, 2014

Follow the Map on Twittertwitter.com/BikesharingMap
See the O'Brien Global Bike Share Map. It shows real time bike usage in over 110 cities!

ASIA:
China:
                         Beijing:

Reports out of Beijing indicate that the municipal bike-sharing program, Public Bicycle In Beijing, is about to become the largest system of any Capital City throughout the world. Albeit, the largest Chinese program remains the one in the City of Hangzhou with over 78,000 bikes. Before the end of this year, when the area of Beijing within its Ring Roads reaches 24,000 bikes, it will surpass Paris as the Capital City with the largest bike-sharing program. As of today, if all the outlying districts that are under the control of the Beijing Program, though not contiguous to the capital, were counted, the current total would be 27,000 bikes and Beijing would now hold the title according to NETEase News.

NORTH AMERICA:

It has been a slow growth year for bike-sharing in North America. Leading up to 2014, it was shaping up to be a banner year of great growth with numerous cities expected to launch new systems either this Spring or Summer. Yet instead of the promised launches, there have been numerous delays. The cold Canadian troubles coupled with a cold and prolonged winter has been a part of it, but financing of programs has had the major role in this year's performance remaining in a low gear.
North American cities need to have State and Federal governments start thinking of bike-sharing as public transit and make available the funding streams that help other forms of public transit flourish.

images: Beijing

Russell Meddin            bikesharephiladelphia.org

The Bike-sharing World - Third Week of April 2014

ASIA:
China:
                        Heihe, Heilongjiang

With Russia across the river, Chinese soldiers patrol the border using Bike-share

As military tensions build this month along the shared Russian and Ukrainian border, the Chinese Border Patrol along the Heilongjiang River that separates the City of Blagoveshchensk, Russia from the City of Heihe, China, have started using bike-sharing. According to The China Network, the bikes increase the ability of the soldiers to perform their duties on the border as well as move around Heihe without needing heavy vehicles. 

However, the soldiers must return the bikes within one hour to avoid usage fees!

image: Wei Jianshun Photography

Russell Meddin            bikesharephiladelphia.org

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 and complement to The Bike-sharing Blog. The easy web address for viewing the map is www.bikesharingworld.com.

Follow the Map on Twitter@BikesharingMap

Barcelona's Bicing to add Vodafone to its Name

According to Barcelona's La Vanguardia, Europe's mobile telecommunication giant, Vodaphone will be the "naming" sponsor of Barcelona's successful bike-sharing program, bicing. The report states that at the beginning of April, the bikes, the stations, the uniforms, the website and naturally the mobile apps will all say "vodafone - bicing." 

The money from the 3 year contract for the branding of bicing with Vodafone will help the program keep the service levels high while reducing public subsidies to the program.

New name in Barcelona

images: vodafone, bicing and la vanguardia

Russell Meddin               bikesharephiladelphia.org

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 and complement to The Bike-sharing Blog. The easy web address for viewing the map is www.bikesharingworld.com.

Follow the Map on Twitter@BikesharingMap

Paris: Vélib' Bike-share Called Into Action To Fight Pollution

Update: 
The offer of the Vélib' 1 days pass at no charge will remain in effect through Monday March 17, 2013. All other city transit is also being offered at no charge to help reduce the pollution by giving alternatives to private motor vehicles. As of the evening of Monday March 17, 2014 over 550,000 Velib' rides were taken to reduce pollution since the offer was made on Maech 13, 2014.

On Thursday March 13, 2014 there was a winter day record of over 135,000 Vélib' trips to help reduce the pollution over Paris.
According to a Vélib' source, 7848 free tickets were dispensed on Friday, March 14th, by 6 PM Paris time, that is close to 2,000 more than the day before!

With the extremely high level of pollition in the French Capital this week, the Mayor of Paris is offering the Vélib' bike-share pass at no charge today and tomorrow. In an effort to reduce the amount of automobile traffic the Mayor is asking residents to leave their cars at home and use Vélib'. For Thursday, March 13th and Friday, March 14th there will be no charge for the 1 day pass at all Vélib' stations according to an official Vélib' web site

Anti-Pollution Measure - One Day Pass Free - March 13 & 14

If you are in Paris March 13th or 14th help reduce the unusual heavy pollution blanketing the City, take Vélib' and take advantage of the free one day pass  which allows 30 minutes of use at no charge each time you take out the bike. Please ride slowly and carefully!

image: Vélib' et Moi

Russell Meddin               bikesharephiladelphia.org

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 and complement to The Bike-sharing Blog. The easy web address for viewing the map is www.bikesharingworld.com.

Follow the Map on Twitter@BikesharingMap

The Bike-sharing World - End of 2013

2013 comes to an end with over 675 cities worldwide with operating 3rd generation bike-shaing services. From the largest cities to the smallest towns on 5 continents, bike-shaing is rolling as an intergral part of public transit. At the end of 2013, a global fleet of approximatedly 700,000 bikes are avaliable in 33,000 stations to use as another way to get from point A to point B.

All data is from The Bike-sharing World Map www.bikesharingworld.com

In 2013 there was a phenomnal increase of 60% in number of cities launching bike-sharing over those in 2012:

In 2012: 95 new cities. In 2013: 152 new cities

Comparison of new bike-sharing lauches by year

The winner for the most new bike-sharing cities in 2013 was: China! Listen to the handlebar bells ringing in celebration. China led the way with 65 new cities. Italy came in second with 20 new services. The USA came in third with 15 new cities -- which is a 90% increase over 2012. 

In 2013, both Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa started feasibility studies for bike-sharing. Soon every continent except Antartica will have bike-sharing services, but rumors are that the penguins are working to change that.

In the last quarter of the year, China excellerated the opening of new services and the increase of the size of existing ones as a direct response to a blanket of pollution that is still covering the country. In the last week of December, four cities launched with over 1,000 bikes each. 

The Bike-sharing World Map for the end of December 2013, shows 678 municipalities with active bike-sharing services. Also 186 municipalities appear as either constructing, planning, or actively studying bike-sharing.

What can we expect to see in 2014? 

The growth of bike-sharing in Asia will not abate. It will still grow in China, but services will begin to be seen in Southeast Asia and the subcontinent.

There will be continued growth of bike-sharing in South America. Buenos Aires, Argentina will add automated stations to its successful city service. The Mayor of Saõ Paulo, Brazil is calling for consolidation of that city's multiple services. All of the countires along the Andes spine are developing bike-sharing.

Unfortunately, Australian bike-sharing is still hampered by the mandatory helmet laws. The services there just haven't been able to capture the usage numbers seen elsewhere in the world. Australia probably will not see much growth in bike-sharing until there is a change in the laws or an exemption for bike-sharing.

North America will continue to have the same growth shown over the last year. Many third tier municipalities in the USA will start services. More Mexican cities will try to duplicate the success of the ever exspanding Ecobici in Mexico City.

Pedelec bikes at Villa Borghese in Rome

In Europe there begins to be more application of "pedelecs" (electrical assist bicycles) in bike-sharing. In 2014 both Madrid and Copenhagen-Federiksberg will have pedelec systems. In both Spain and Italy, older bike-sharing services are being updated with pedelecs. Milan annouced that it will add 1,000 pedelecs to its successful BikeMi.

While 2013 was a big year for bike-sharing, it's very likely 2014 will be the start of a new era as new technologies develop and more municipalities implement the concept with their own unique flair.

images: Rome

The statistics quoted above come from 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

Sneak Peak at Copenhagen's Cykel DK

 

Tak (thanks) goes to my friends in the Cities of Copenhagen and Frederiksberg for a sneak peak at their upcoming bike-sharing service, Cykel DK. This new uber high-tech service is to launch this fall in Copenhagen and Frederiksberg, Denmark and will have some unique features such as an Android tablet with built-in GPS, real-time train departures and ticket integration, and real-time info on available bikes and docks in the area. Unfortunately, real-time Tour de France footage won't be available with this version of the software. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this on version 2.0. 

  

There will be 1,260 bikes at 65 stations and the service, of course, will be available 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. Customers will use the tablet to enter their credit card info to unlock the bike. Tourists and other casual customers will pay 20 DKK (about 3.50 USD) per hour. Frequent customers can purchase a membership for 50 DKK (about 8.85 USD) per month.

Cykel DK is a non-profit that will be operated by the cities of Copenhagen and Frederiksberg plus DSB -- Denmark's national railway system. For the Blog's U.S. readers, can you imagine Amtrak getting into the bike-share business?! It makes so much sense as an extension of their existing inter-city mobility provision. And Amtrak wouldn't even be the second or third national railway to do this: Deutsche Bahn in Germany, Dutch Railways in The Netherlands, and SNCB in Belgium already do this, plus I'm sure a handful of others.

I'm not sure if I've seen a bike-share technology that will truly take us into the 4th generation of bike-share, but from what I've read so far, it's looking like this could be it.

Here's their video with more info.

More information about Cykel DK is at http://www.byogpendlercyklen.dk and gobike is at http://gobike.com.

Image credits: Ursula Bach and gobike

Commuter Parity Act

On June 6th in the U.S. House of Representatives a bill was introduced which would add bike-sharing as an acceptable tax-free bicycle commuting expense. If voted into law, the Commuter Parity Act of 2013 would allow employers to provide to their employees up to $35/month for "qualified bicycle commuting reimbursement" which means "any employer reimbursement for reasonable expenses incurred by the employee for the purchase of a bicycle and bicycle improvements, repair, and storage, or bikesharing program, if such bicycle is regularly used for travel between the employee’s residence and place of employment." The bill also makes private bike needs pre-tax for the same amount and brings transit up to $220, which is the same amount that a single occupant vehicle gets. (Note: To those from outside the U.S. who don't understand why a solo driver would get a pre-tax benefit for driving to work, and one that is greater than for taking transit to work, welcome to a quick lesson on how our Congress sometimes malfunctions.)

Over the past couple of years I've called the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) multiple times about whether laws, such as the Bicycle Commuter Act and Commuter Choice Act, accommodate bike-sharing. The first time I was told "Yes, they do apply". A second call to confirm my disbelief brought, "No, they don't." A third call simply confirmed the IRS was as confused as I. They told me that I'd need to write a formal letter to the IRS requesting a determination for a special employer and a specific bike-sharing service, and pay a large fee for their research. Their response would only apply to my specific question and not to the hundreds of thousands of other employers who could possibly benefit from the same answer. Crazy, ain't it?

This bill makes so much more sense and it does need to be written into law with the word "bike-sharing" specifically called out so as there won't be any confusion... other than the fact that the term isn't listed yet in any dictionary that I've seen. As long as Congress is using The Bike-sharing Blog's definition on the top right corner of the website, we'll be set!

For The Bike-sharing Blog's U.S. readers, write to your Congressperson asking them to support H.R. 2288: Commuter Parity Act of 2013. Making bike-share membership and usage fees pre-tax is a great way to remove another hurdle and make bike-sharing that much more useful and economical to the public.

NYC's Citi Bike Launches with Much Excitement

Today the streets of New York City and Brooklyn are filled with 3,000 brand new blue bikes as part of the Citi Bike service which has been many years in the making. There are many articles already in the media about the "yay sayers" and "nay sayers", so this post is about the technological improvements that the equipment provides, advancing bike-sharing in leaps and bounds.

The first of Citi Bike's exciting advances in bike-sharing technology, developed by Public Bike System Company, are a solar mast and a combined key fob and smartcard reader. With New York's skyscrapers, getting sufficient direct sunlight to the ground was an issue that was solved with the addition of a solar mast atop the kiosk. The solar mast is a 5-6' pole that also is about 6" in diameter and collects not direct sun, but ambient light.

 The improved dock includes a dual slot for both the standard key fob and a larger smart card slot for a future multi-transport card, likely to combine both the subway and bikes in the future.

Other minor advances which may not invoke oohs and aahs, but as the program manager for Arlington's portion of Capital Bikeshare, I'm looking forward to bridging that can turn a location with impediments into a feasible site. This bridging can zig and zig around a tree well, manhole, fire hydrant, etc. and transform a space that was too small into a candidate for a station. As every inch of urban space seems to be spoken for, this minor advancement is a big deal.

One "only in New York" advancement is the little circle covering the dock holes on platforms to make room for deliveries. With such large stations, these gaps allow stations to be long while providing space for those deliveries to be made.

While I'm saddened to see Capital Bikeshare lose the title of "Largest Bike-sharing Service in the U.S.", I'm invigorated to have millions more using bike-sharing and furthering this crazy little concept that continues to spread throughout the world like wildlife. In Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York", he sings that if he can make it there, he can make it anywhere. As bike-sharing has been successful everywhere worldwide, it can make it there -- in New York too.

How the Best Bikeshare in the Country Does Business

 

The first plan of its kind for bikesharing in the United States has just been published. It is a comprehensive 6-year plan for Capital Bikeshare in Arlington County, Virginia.

Arlington County Capital Bikeshare Transit Development Plan 2013 to 2018

It took more than a year to finalize the report because we wanted extensive public input at all stages. This included open forums with regional partners, the business community, all Arlington civic associations, and the general public. Opportunities for public input were plentiful, both online and at in-person forums. The Capital Bikeshare crowdsourcing map was also used.

Listening to the public provided:

• General direction for the program (such as, should we remain focused on the urban core and transit corridors or should we expand more to neighborhoods that are further from the transit spine?)
• General weighting between geographic areas for quantity of bikes and stations needed, and
• Specific direction on exactly where the stations should be placed.

The Transit Development Plan represents a major step towards establishing bikesharing as a legitimate transit mode. The plan will be submitted to the State of Virginia in the same way a local bus service would be submitted. The hope is that bikesharing will be considered for funding through the same channels. Capital Bikeshare is an integrated part of the transportation fabric in the Washington D.C. region, and it should be treated as such.

The plan spells out how people are using Capital Bikeshare in Arlington and the region and also how people will use it over the next six years. Trip quantity, trip type, motivations to ride, expansion plans, revenue, funding needs, life cycle and replacement costs are all outlined.

A must-read for anyone working on bringing bikesharing to their city or municipality – or anyone with local interest in the Capital Bikeshare program – we are excited to have this resource and to all the great years of bikesharing ahead.

Chris Eatough is BikeArlington's program manager.

Cross-posted on The BikeArlington Blog

Copenhagen is getting ready to GOBIKE

GOBIKE - Copenhagen's Bycyklen Replacement

Just after terminating its 17-year old coin-operated Bycyklen bike-share system, Copenhagen City Hall has changed its mind and will fund a new system for 2013 according to The Copenhagen Post. The new Bycyklen is GOBIKE! 

GOBIKE is the newest version of the Urbikes system, from a company based in Barcelona, Spain. There are a few innovations scheduled for the Copenhagen system. The most intriguing is the utilization of some of the research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology SENSEable City Laboratory programs: CopenCycle and The Copenhagen Wheel. GOBIKE riders will have real time information at their figure tips with a touch screen computer between the handle bars as they negotiate the one of the world's leading cycle-friendly cities.

The on-board computer will plan your route with a map display. It can give real-time transport schedule information with ticketing integration. It can furnish information on activities in areas through which you are cycling. Real-time bike and docking station availability is displayed as well.

To make it easy to find and take a bike, a smart phone app will locate the nearest bike and allow you to reserve it. Whether or not the app will reserve an empty slot to return the bike is yet to be seen! This system will really be the beginning of 4th generation bike-sharing.

The city will install 2,000 GOBIKES at bike-share stations near public transport hubs to achieve seamless transfers from train, tram, and bus. The bikes have a shaft drive instead of a chain system and puncture-proof solid tires to reduce maintenance needs. The system is scheduled to stay open all year round.

Keep reading The Bike-sharing Blog for GOBIKE's inauguration as it happens. 

The Bike-sharing World Map is the #1 global resource for bike-sharing systems. Keep up-to-date with the changing bike-sharing world by visiting us.

images: GOBIKE

Russell Meddin    bikesharephiladelphia.org

Capital Bikeshare Cost Recovery in Arlington, VA

How did Arlington’s portion of Capital Bikeshare do in its second year of service? Are Arlingtonians and visitors using the service? How many trips are made and how much was spent? These questions and a lot more are discussed in Arlington County’s “FY12 Summary Report on Capital Bikeshare”. The report’s highlights include the service’s continued cost recovery growth, annual key indicator data, member survey analysis, and accomplishments.

Not to spoil the conclusion for you, but yes, the service had a good year. The County expanded Capital Bikeshare throughout the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor during this time period, more than doubling its number of stations from 18 to 41 and bikes from 123 to 286. With the additional stations and bikes came an increased cost recovery ratio – the percentage of revenues divided by expenses. Fiscal Year 2011 had a 53% cost recovery ratio and FY12 saw an increase to 64%. 

Arlington’s portion of the service had $411,000 in revenues from memberships, user fees, and sponsorships and $473,000 in operations expenses, plus $170,000 in management and marketing – totaling $643,000 in expenses. The number of trips starting and ending in Arlington increased by about 280% to 88,613 (trips starting) and 86,438 (trips ending). The number of miles ridden in Arlington increased 343% to about 95,000 miles, which helped remove nearly 64,000 pounds of CO2 from the air. The service also got us more active and we burned over 4.1 million calories to be fit.

The Report also discusses our accomplishments, such as our partnership with Bank on DC, Transit Development Plan, map panels design updated, marketing campaign, and call center improvements. The report can be found online at BikeArlington.com. 

(cross-posted on BikeArlington.com)

Bycyklen is Dead. Long Live Bycyklen!

The City of Cyclists won't be modernizing its bike-sharing service any time soon due to a decision by the Copenhagen City Council. They recently voted not to fund a modernization of one of the earliest bike-sharing services, Bycyklen, which was born in 1995 and is still in operation. Rather than smart cards and solar stations, this service uses a coin deposit lock and the honor system which had worked reasonably well in its early years, but hasn't been maintained properly by its present operator -- AFA JCDecaux. 

According to The Copenhagen Post, Ayfer Baykal, Copenhagen's deputy mayor for technical and environmental affairs, "defended the city’s decision not to invest in the cycle sharing scheme this year.

“They’re junk, I agree with [the Danish Cyclist Federation] on that issue. The city bike scheme, as it exists today, needs to be updated. It is old and outdated. But right now we need to prioritize.”

Deputy Mayor Baykal continues, “The city bike scheme is primarily for people coming from outside the city because Copenhageners have their own bicycles. I have chosen to prioritize better cycling conditions in Copenhagen through improved bicycle lanes and bicycle parking instead of the bicycle sharing system.”

What better way to help tourists experience the city than the way Copenhageners do - by bike? If a Bycyklen or other bike-share bike isn't available to a tourist, he or she could just as easily use a taxi or rent a car. To the environment, it doesn't matter whether the pollution comes from a resident or a tourist, but rather that the pollution is created. Also, tourists are the most profitable user segment as they contribute more financially than residents do through day membership or per minute fees.

While Copenhageners are bike-friendly, do they always bring their bike with them? I too live in a city with a growing bike mode share and frequently go by bike, but sometimes I just don't have my bike with me. The local bike-share service, Capital Bikeshare, frequently helps me get from point A to point B. I could otherwise take the train or drive.

The 150 million Danish kroner (26 million USD) will instead be used to make cycling improvements in the city, which is not a bad second place project, however, a piece of reality in how local governments are stretched thin for funding for many deserving projects. Additionally, the end of Bycyklen is near as the contract with AFA JCDecaux for the service expires October 31. Not sure what will happen after that with bike-sharing.

On a personal note, Bycyklen got me interested and excited about bike-sharing back in 1995 as I read about the new Bycyklen on-line and went to Copenhagen for a semester abroad to learn about bike-sharing and this quaint modern bike-friendly city which I, in turn, fell in love with. I was back last year in a professional capacity to work with the Cities of Copenhagen and Frederiksberg and DSB in developing the public tender for a new operator and vendor. Hopefully the Council will see the value of modernizing the bike-sharing service not only to regain a worldwide leadership in bike-sharing that it once had.