Feliz Cumpleaños ECOBICI & Joyeux Anniversaire VCUB

The end of February brings the first anniversary of two very successful bike-sharing systems. One in Europe and the other in North America. Both have exceeded usage expectations of their respective city governments and are planning to grow.

ECOBICI - Mexico City, Mexico; Born: February 16, 2010

It was an immediate success in the heavily auto congested Colonia Condesa, Juárez, and Cuauhtémoc areas of the Federal District. Within a few months the coverage area was expanded to include parts of the Historical Center of the city. In the first year ECOBICI was used 1.2 million times. There are around 25,000 registered yearly subscribers to the Clear Channel system of 1,200 bikes and 90 stations. These subscribers use the bikes an average of 9,000 times daily with a median trip of around 20 minutes.

According to Milenio.com, at the First Anniversary Celebration, Mayor Ebrard and Clear Channel announced that the service will add 1,700 more bikes and 110 more stations before the end of 2011. It also plans to have a total of 4,000 bikes and 275 stations by the end of 2012.

V³ - Bordeaux, France; Born: February 20, 2010

Like the wines of this region, it was a good year for the experiment to make buses, trams, and bikes seamlessly interconnected in and around Bordeaux. With 1,545 bikes of V^CUB (Vélos for the Community of Urban Bordeaux) being used around 5,000 times a day, over 1.6 million trips have been taken this first year. Another measure of success is that 75% of subscribers have signed up for the full transit option, not just the bikes. Interestingly, in a survey 50% of 13,000 subscribers indicated they owned their own bike. According to SudOuest, during the beginning of the service, bike store operators were not enthusiastic of the program, but now have seen an increase in demand for new bikes since there are more people accustomed to riding in the city. The operating company, Keolis, also operates the region's buses and trams.

images: Blogalaxia & Francesudouest

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

Hike to the Bike

What does a bike-sharing trip look like? Well there are many home videos out there showing the first bike-sharing ride in Paris, Denver, or Montréal. There are educational videos showing safety while bike-sharing. There are also videos of dare-devil rodeo stunts on these transportation workhorses. However, one of the most fascinating is this amazing animation video from Dr. Martin Austwick at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis - University College London (CASA). His video shows what thousands of bike-sharing trips look like in one day when the London Tube was on strike. Folks bailed the rail and hiked to the bike.

This video was made possible by the collaborative work of Oliver O’Brien (his blog at Suprageography) also at CASA, who mapped the routes from station to station. In this video, a bike picked up flashes red, then leaves a Barclays Cycle Hire Blue trail as it goes, and flashes yellow when returned. The information to make this video came from Transport of London after one million trips were made on the system.

Using this same information of all these bike-sharing trips from July to November in London, interactive “spider maps” of bike movement from dock to dock are now available. With O’Brien’s spectral London Bike Flow Map, each day’s trips from each station can be seen. David Quinn, (QUA, from MIT), created a Trip Frequency Map that shows a value for the amount of bikes that move from one station to another.

When data on bike-sharing is made available, it becomes a very good tool in determining the best way to structure services to serve the public with personal mobility. There are more videos on bike-sharing services from around the world on the Bike-sharing Video Pages. There are also more CASA visualizations available on the Bike-sharing Metrics Page.

Co-authors Paul DeMaio and Russell Meddin

The Middle East is Also a Hotbed for Bike-sharing

While the Middle East dominates the news this week, bike-sharing is dominating the Middle East. A CycloCity system, Q Bike, in Doha, Qatar has begun operating. The program is a joint effort of the Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning and q.media Decaux, a subsidiary of JCDecaux.

“The idea (with this program) is to eventually make our country bicycle friendly,” the Qatar Cycling Federation President told Gulf Times at the launch ceremony. The ribbon cutting was attended by bicycle legend Eddy Merckx to underscore its importance. The program is starting as a small trial, but is planned to expand throughout Doha and possibly the rest of the country. It is interesting to note that this station, pictured above, seems to be a "drop in place" configuration which would not need to be cut, or trenched, into the street or sidewalks as all other CycloCity programs throughout the world have been.

Tel Aviv's TelOfun bike-sharing service is under construction. It is scheduled to begin operation this spring and will start with 750 bikes and 75 stations and expand to 150 stations with 1,500 bikes. There will be an annual subscription fee of 280 shekels with a special 240 shekel price for Tel Aviv residents ($73 and $63 USD respectively). There will also be a weekly price of 60 shekels ($16 USD) and a daily price of 14 shekels ($4 USD), except on Saturdays and religious holidays where there will be a 20 shekel price ($5 USD) for tourists. The usage fees will follow the regular bike-sharing formula of no charge for the first 1/2 hour and then 5 shekels ($1.30 USD) for the next 1/2 hour, etcetera. The bikes, bright green in color, and the stations will be similar to the DB StadtRAD (Call a Bike) system in Hamburg, Germany.

Also in the news from Israel this week is the work of two Tel Aviv University professors, Tal Raviv and Michal Tzur who are working on mathematical models to facilitate re-balancing bike-sharing stations in large systems: Static Re-positioning in Bike-sharing Systems. This is a continuation of a concept developed for the Bicing program in Barcelona by Aleix Ruiz de Villa in 2009.

image: Gulf Times & Dana Passech

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

Madison Whisked Off Its Feet with TREK this Spring

Madison B-cycle is planned to start in May 2011 with 350 bikes scattered in 35 stations around this capital and University of Wisconsin town. According to the Journal-Sentinel Online, Trek Bicycle Corporation, part owner of B-cycle, will invest about $1,000,000 to start up the program. The City of Madison will pay $100,000 a year for 3 years to support the program. The income from subscriptions and usage fees will be split between the city and Trek. These fees are expected to be around the same as the other B-cycle programs.

There are B-cycle programs in Chicago, Denver, Louisville, San Antonio, Des Moines, and soon to be Ft Lauderdale and Boulder. Trek started the B-cycle system in partnership with the Innovations Center of Humana and Crispin Porter+Bogusky. Trek Corporate Headquarters are just outside of Madison, Wisconsin.

Update: Madison City Council approves its funding for B-cycle, Wisconsin State Journal
Update II: Trek Bicycles forgives the $100,000 yearly payment for Madison B-cycle for a yearly contribution of $1.00 according to Trek Bicycles in April 2011

image: stock

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

Boulder Preparing to Rock Bike-sharing

Following the lead of its big sister (Denver, Colorado), Boulder is preparing to launch Boulder B-Cycle on May 20. The service will have 200 bikes and 25 stations and is being paid for through a $250,000 federal grant from the City of Boulder and a grassroots fund-raising campaign with a goal of reaching $1.25M.

Just today Google stepped forward with a $25,000 donation from the Google Community Grants Fund at the Tides Foundation, which makes donations to non-profits. The service will be a non-profit similar to Denver B-Cycle and Nice Ride Minnesota.

The cost of a day membership will be $5 and an annual membership for $50. Also, memberships will be compatible with Denver B-Cycle, which will be about 30 miles away and outside of your 30-minute free window unless you're a really fast cyclist.

image credit: Boulder B-Cycle

Auckland Looking for the Next Bike

Auckland, New Zealand has a bike-sharing REOI -- government speak for Request for Expressions of Interest. According to the document:

The first Public Bike Hire scheme in Auckland was launched by Nextbikes in Auckland CBD in 2008. In 2010, the scheme expanded to include Devonport and Takapuna on the North Shore. At that time the scheme had 170 bikes on the street sharing public bike parking stands. The scheme ceased trading in early November 2010.

Auckland Transport was created on 1st November 2010 following governance changes in the Auckland region. It is a council controlled organisation responsible for transport provision and transport planning in Auckland (population 1.4 million). It has a strong policy mandate to promote and develop walking and cycling as part of an integrated transport strategy. The Auckland Regional Land Transport Strategy (RLTS) provides the strategic long term direction for transport, including cycling, in the city region.

Since the demise of the Nextbikes scheme, Auckland Council and Auckland Transport have each already considered proposals for, and adopted resolutions in support of further investigating a public bike hire scheme for Auckland.

There is no solid requirement for the number of bikes and stations, however, in the short-term the service must begin by their hosting of the World Rugby Cup. (Any guess on when this is so I can book my ticket?)

The closing date of the REOI is February 4. The REOI is linked here on The Bike-sharing Blog and may be accessed on the Auckland Transport site.

image credit: City Pictures

2010 Year-end Wrap-up

This year has been another fantastic year for bike-sharing around the world. In my most unscientific calculation I have counted there to be about 238 bike-sharing services around the world, up from about 160 last year, for a 49% increase. On top of this, there are another 53 services that are in planning stages and may come online soon.

Many notable things happened this year in the field that have pushed the boundaries of bike-sharing and transit. And it’s great timing too as global climate change doesn’t seem to want to let the world catch up. These improvements include:

Vcub(e) (Bordeaux, France) pushed the edges of 3^rd generation bike-sharing by integrating with the region’s other transit systems such that the same RFID card could be used on any transit system.

Mexico City repealed its bike helmet law before the launch of Ecobici, however, Melbourne did not, which has limited the public’s uptake. Although, Melbourne Bike Share is experimenting with helmet vending machines and helmet sales at convenience stores for which we wish them good luck.

India and Iran got into the bike-sharing game with Bike House and FreMo, respectively, operating modified 2^nd generation services. Good for them. This proves there’s no one right answer for each challenge.

Dublinbikes (Dublin, Ireland) is a little service that became so widely used with a whopping 10 trips per bike per day and 100 members per bike. “By comparison Paris has around 8 per bike and Washington, DC around 5 subscribers per bike.”

Dublinbikes

Barclays Cycle Hire (London, England) launched earlier this year with great fanfare as Barclays provided £25 million to sponsor the service, lending its name and covering the city with 6,000 blue bikes. Their safety and usage videos are to date the best I’ve seen yet. Maybe their next video will have Prince William and Kate narrating.

Velib’ (Paris, France) turned 3 years old this year and hit its 80,000,000^th trip. I remember the good old days when it had hit its 1,000,000^th trip. Ahhh, memories.

The first large-scale bike-sharing services in the U.S. with the launches of Nice Ride Minnesota (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA), Denver B-cycle (Denver, Colorado, USA), and Capital Bikeshare (Washington, D.C. and Arlington, Virginia, USA). Each trying to out-do the other, the each launched a couple of months from each other with more bikes and stations.

Capital Bikeshare

As you can see, it’s been quite a busy year in the bike-sharing world. Here at The Bike-sharing Blog we had about 80,000 visitors this year and The Bike-sharing World Map has had over 760,000 views since its inception over three years ago. At nearly 300 listings of services which are either running or on their way, the Bike-sharing World Map has gotten a little wieldy as we’re pushing the edges of what a Google Map can do.

We at MetroBike, LLC have had a good year ourselves with the work we’ve accomplished and the many projects were working on. The movement to get people riding is just beginning to roll. There’s still so much to do to change the path the world has been heading down. Bike-sharing, along with many other innovative, green ideas, will be the change the world must see to improve ourselves.

The Bike-sharing Blog co-authors, Russell Meddin of Bike Share Philadelphia and I, wish you a happy and healthy 2011 with lots of bike-sharing. We look forward to the upcoming year and all the exciting things we have yet to learn, experience, and share on The Bike-sharing Blog. We’ll keep you posted, so you keep us posted too about what’s going on in your part of the world.

Best wishes,

Paul DeMaio

Paul DeMaio, MetroBike, LLC

Boris' Gift to Santa(s)

Taking a brief break to get some exercise before his long flight to deliver gifts, Santa, or make that Santas, borrow "Boris Bikes" in London for some jovial riding around town.

Warning: As this video depicts more than one Santa, it should not be viewed by children younger than 12.

Dublin City Council Approves Tenfold Expansion of Bike-sharing

The City Council of Dublin, Ireland yesterday approved a tenfold expansion of the Dublin bike-sharing program from 500 to 5,000 bikes, according to the Irishtimes. The wildly successful Dublinbikes is one of the most popular bike-sharing systems in Europe. Many of the current 450 bikes are being used around 10 times a day.

The approval foresees the expansion over five years. The number of bike stations will grow from today's 40 to nearly 300. The JCDecaux system in operation since September 2009, has signed up more than 47,000 subscribers. That is over 100 subscribers per bike. By comparison Paris has around 8 per bike and Washington, DC around 5 subscribers per bike. For many of those Dublinbikers, even with the snow, 5 years can't come soon enough!

image: December 2, 2010 Scholastic Geometry by Mark Dennehy

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

Step Right Up and Hire a Boris Bike

This morning, after four months of operation for locals, London’s extremely successful Barclays Cycle Hire will be open to users from all around the world. On December 3rd Transport for London (TfL) starts allowing non-United Kingdom residents to hire a "Boris Bikes." A casual user, anyone over 14 years of age, with a Visa or Master Card (American Express need not apply) can now walk up to the kiosk at any station to get a bike. Yes, even Master Cards and Visas issued in the USA will work!

There are easy to follow the instructions available in multiple languages on a large video screen at the kiosk. Pay the £1 fee for 24-hour access with your credit card. Like the similar systems in Montréal, Minneapolis, Melbourne, and Washington, the terminal prints out, on paper, a cycle release code for each cycle. A new release code is needed every time you take out a bike; the system remembers the credit card and at no extra charge within 24 hours issues the new release code for each time. Make sure that your cycle is roadworthy, a seat turned around, is the universal bike-share signal that there is a problem! Compose the cycle release code at the docking point. The light will turn amber while your code is verified, then wait for the green light and then pull out your cycle. Like most systems the first thirty minutes are free, then the next 30 minutes is £1, then the price really escalates. Do not keep it too long because two hours will cost £6 and three hours £15. So make those rides short.

If you come to a station that is full and you can’t return the bike. Use the kiosk to locate the nearest empty docking point and get an extra 15 minutes for free to find it. Although there isn’t a location map on the screen yet, there are good maps on each kiosk. The station location map is on-line here and there are various smart phone applications. On a nice day, many of the 6,000 bikes are in use, especially during rush hour. In the morning they are hard to find near the railways stations and at night those stations are full! TfL is building a 124-docking point station at the Waterloo Railway Station to keep up with the demand which could be the largest station in the world. Because of the success of the system, over 1.8 million usages in 4 months, there are plans, announced in November, to expand the system into the eastern part of the city with another 2,000 bikes by 2012.

According to James Mead, Barclays Cycle Hire Operations Manager, there are over 100,000 UK residents subscribing to the system with RFID “keys” which allows access to the bikes. Around 35% of these are annual members and 60% are daily members. The rest are weekly. He expects these new "casual users" to make up around 10% of the total ridership. Currently, there are around 20,000 trips every weekday made on the Boris Bikes and 10,000 on the weekend days. With these usage numbers and such successful public acceptance of the program, analysts are projecting it is on course to become the only TfL system to make an operating profit, according to the newspaper, The Guardian.

Enjoy your ride in London! By the way you do not need to bank at Barclays to use the Boris Bikes.

Keep in mind that in London you ride a bike on the left! Try to use the green bike lanes or the blue "Barclays Cycle Super Highways" lanes as a reminder on which side of the road to ride. Don't forget, the front brake is on the right and the rear on the left!

Update: According to the Evening Standard, the first day of "casual use" of Barclays Cycle Hire was fraught with computer glitches and bad weather. Many kiosk crashed when implementing the added service. It was necessary for technicians to correct the problems on site by rebooting approximate 100 kiosk of the effected stations. It is operational now.

images: The Bike-sharing Blog

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

Velib' Accessorizes for the Holidays

Cyber Monday, the day we pause and give thanks to shopping on the Internet, is here and Velib' is ready to assist you with your gift purchasing needs with a great expansion cycling accessories on its online store. They have a wide variety of goods, including shopping bags of various colors, helmets with a flashing rear light, reflective pant clips, ponchos, locks, and urban chic cycling gloves.

Be the envy of your friends with a tre' cool "Couvre-selle gel avec revêtement imperméable", or "gel seat" in English, which fits over the regular seat for more cushion and to keep your butt dry. Your butt will be glad you did.

Bixi also has a discounted membership for the holiday season.

image credit: Bike Original

New York City Request Proposals for 10,000-Bike Service

This morning the New York City Department of Transportation issued its long awaited Request for Proposal for a mega bike-sharing system. The request asks for bike-share operators to use the New York Planning Commission feasibility study, Bike-share Opportunities in New York City, as a guide to plan a program. The study suggests that the system start with 10,000 bikes and 600 stations. It should be multi-borough, but begin in the Manhattan Central Business District and expand into other boroughs of the City.

Although the request only calls for a five year initial contract, the system could grow to rival the size of the Hangzhou, China's Public Bicycle Service mega system of 50,000 bikes (see The Bike-sharing Blog July 2009 for more info). If all goes well without any flat tires or broken spokes in negotiations, we could be using one of the great bike-share systems in one of the greatest cities of the world by maybe this time next year.

image: New York Times -Bike-share at NYC Summer Streets


Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

Nice Ride Minnesota Survey Results

Nice Ride's survey results were released today and the numbers are impressive. According to Nice Ride, there were 100,817 total trips taken within the first season's five months of operating. These trips were taken by 1,295 1-year members, 89 30-day members, and 29,077 taste-testers, or 24-hr members.

Regarding theft and vandalism, it's clear that Minnesotans and Minneapolis' visitors are honest and good riders and drivers. There were only two bikes lost and three incidents of vandalism causing damage greater than $100. Take THAT, Paris with its horrendous theft and vandalism record! (I'm only kidding, j'aime Paris.) Also, there were no reports of injury and only one reported crash.

The survey (found here) covers 1-year and 30-day members and was sent out to about 1,300 addresses of which about 680 responded. There's tons of good data in there, however, what drew my interest was the following question:

"Please recall the most recent trip you took using a Nice Ride bicycle. If you had not used a Nice Ride bicycle, how would you have otherwise made this trip"

Value	Count	Percent %
I would have walked	258	37.9%
I would have taken public transit (bus or light rail)	138	20.3%
I would have taken a taxi	18	2.6%
I would have driven a car	132	19.4%
I would have gotten a ride in someone's car	5	0.7%
I would have used my personal bicycle	56	8.2%
I would not have taken the trip	62	9.1%
Other (please specify)	12	1.8%

Nearly 20% would have driven. That's outstanding and is quite higher than other cities' mode shift percentages from bike-sharing, which includes Lyon, France with only about 4% shifting away from driving, according to the NICHES publication on bike-sharing. Not too shabby. The survey should be very helpful to jurisdictions around the world who don't have bike-sharing yet get funding for such services as they really do work.

Nice Ride Sprints to End of Season

In less than an hour from now, Nice Ride Minnesota, the U.S.'s second largest, and second chronologically, will be hibernating for the winter. With high temperatures this week in the mid-60s F, it's almost balmy in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, however, lows are predicted to be below freezing this weekend with snow showers.

It has been a good first season, reports Bill Dossett, Executive Director of Nice Ride, with about 100,000 trips made since the their launch nearly five months ago on June 10. With Nice Ride analyzing its first season presently with a survey, the responses and data are to be available soon. Stay tuned to The Bike-sharing Blog as this becomes available.

image credit: Just BARE

Toronto closer to being the 2nd major Canadian City with Bike-sharing

Last night, Autoshare Car-sharing brought Toronto, Canada closer to Bixi Bike-sharing by buying 100 yearly subscriptions to fulfill one of the city government's requirement that 1000 pre-subscribers sign up before proceeding with a bike-sharing program for May 2011. The Toronto plan is to start with 1000 bikes and 80 stations within the Central Business District. Now only another $150,000 CDN ($145,500 US) in yearly sponsorships for each of the next three years must be secured on top of the generous ING three year commitment to fulfill the last requirement before the program can begin.

It will be good to see bike-sharing once more in Toronto!

image: Toronto Bixi

Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org

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