Scaling the Largest Dockless Bikesharing Platform | Hacker News Reader

Scaling the Largest Dockless Bikesharing Platform

pingcap.com

29 pointsjinqueeny28 comments

After living in Washington DC which was one of the first cities to successfully implement the bikeshare model, I honestly dont understand why cities still continue to push the dockless model. Capital BikeShare in DC worked for year, I didn't have a car and it was my primary means of transportation. There was a plethora of docks placed strategically throughout the city and I rarely had an issue finding a dock to park my bike. In the last year they are testing the dockless model and I now I see bikes thrown all over the street just as I have in other cities with dockless bikeshare. Why the push to continue for the dockless option?

I can think of two potential "classes" of reasons for this. (Caveat, I have no special insight to bikesharing, these just seem like naive benefits to avoiding docks)

Real estate for docks is probably not cheap, either monetarily or in terms of "soft capital". (negotiations with city/business owners to allow emplacement). There may also be regulatory hurdles.

Then there's the docks themselves. They likely add a large amount of cap-ex (compared to the bikes themselves) while being "technically" tangential to the actual money-making-value-add of the bikes (so if you can work without them it's pure profit), and are less flexible/repurposable than the bikes themselves, both in terms of meta-strategy (e.g. if a company wanted to launch in a new city, it's a lot easier to just drop bikes on a bunch of corners than to install docks/go through that whole process. Similarly on pulling OUT of a city, much easier to just reclaim bikes) and in allowing better individual bike availability. (docks imply central locations for easy pickup/dropoff, which may not be the reality in a heterogenous city without absurd numbers of docks)

If a lot of this sounds similar to the well-chewed-tech-mantra of "distributed == good, fewer points of failure, more availability" it's because I'm largely pulling from that book. Especially with the sort of data TFA details, this model would probably allow for far more micro-tailoring than having to rely on static docks would.

The is also the issue of dock balancing. You have x number of spaces on a dock. If traffic flows mostly one way during the day and the other way during the night then you get network weightings that are lopsided, so there is not enough dock space at popular dock A. As a result you need a very high dock capacity, potentially like 10x the amount of bikes for all docks.

To combat this problem DC puts out portable docks when higher traffic is expected. If there is an event or concert in a park, they can drive a van over and add more docks for that day.

On a daily basis I think they do a pretty good job determining which networks need a higher capacity ie which docks in high traffic areas have a larger number of spaces.

Real estate isn't a problem if it's institutionalized by the city. It can often become a boon to retailers if there's a dock right outside. That, and, they are on sidewalks that the city generally owns the rights to.

”Real estate for docks is probably not cheap”

Floor space is expensive in large cities, so neither is real estate for non-docks. That’s why some cities forbid companies from using public space to park their bicycles (just as they won’t let companies place soda machines or newspaper kiosks wherever they want)

Well why do you need a dock at all? In Singapore and China, I find shared bikes from different providers neatly parked virtually at any major bus stop, subway station mall or apartment block and it's very convenient for say doing a short shopping trip or going to the metro. Is the problem that people in DC don't park properly?

Seattle rolled out dockless bike sharing in August 2017, and we haven't had any problems with it. If anything, it's been amazing.

The city has been extending and building protected bike lanes like crazy too.

I've seen everything from daily travelers to huge groups (20+) of tourists riding them.

I can't comment on DC's dockless bike share, as I haven't seen it myself. I wonder why it's working so well over here and not over there?

It definitely had some initial problems.

I say this as someone who doesn't own a car and bikes or transits everywhere, but you really don't think there's problems with the bikes here? When I drive around Seattle I see these bikes just tossed anywhere. On the sidewalk, in the grass between the sidewalk and street, parked on corners with busy crosswalks, leaned against bus stops. It's like we've all accepted that it's ok to leave our junk just lying anywhere we please.

> Is the problem that people in DC don't park properly?

It's definitely a culture thing. In Sydney people seem to think it's fun to trash the bikes, throw them in rivers or just render them unusable.

That's what happened when my town in USA tried it years ago. The bikes were all destroyed or stolen and cut up and sold for scrap within a few weeks.

I've lived in both cities and the abuse is the problem. Its a toss up as to which city was worse, DC or Sydney.

It might be a culture thing, but looking at the comments here it seems to occur in every city.

Not a specific city problem, a humanity problem.

I see bikes without saddles (stolen?), with destroyed/sliced saddles (vandalism) and in otherwise okay shape lying .. everywhere in Singapore. Sometimes in the middle of the road (the divider, not the actual road). In random bushes.

Yes, the _majority_ probably is parked properly. But there are so many cases of "bike abuse" around that I see on a daily basis that I'm constantly shaking my head about this lack of respect and care. Is DC that much worse? I wouldn't know.

I would have expected Singapore of all places to be tidy, given all the anecdotes about anti-littering enforcement, chewing gum, etc.

It is quite clean, for sure! It's so much cleaner than any other place I've been to.

But people are people and some things are quite normal and expected here.. Like randomly putting these bikes ~wherever~ or littering cigarette buds.

It can get pretty bad. And I have seen the exact same problems in other cities like Florence, Italy and Sydney (DC was the worst).

Even if the majority are using the service properly it takes seeing one bike in a tree to ruin the system for everyone.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/How-Is-This-Not-Lit...

I don't know how big the DC problem is. I do see sometimes see bikes where they don't really belong--on neighborhood streets, halfway up a hill out of Rock Creek Park, and so on.

For version 2.0: e-bikes

Paris’ system is rolling out ebikes on their system. Can’t do that without docks.

But the capex goes way up now that they all need electrification.

Seattle has plenty of dockless E-Bikes. Limebike rolled them out over the past 4 months or so, and everything seems to work well with them.

Have you experienced the "bike abuse" or littering problem? It could simply come down to the culture of the city but as others here have noted people can't be trusted with nice things.

Maybe Seattle just has more responsible citizens?

Having used dockless Mobikes in Paris (despite being a fan of classic Velib', they managed to fuck it up so badly last year that it's close to useless now) I can attest to the convenience of bumping into a bike, using it for a short ride and just dropping it off wherever you are going. Velib was annoying in that it was sometimes hard to find a bike or a dock to leave it. Citymapper really was instrumental to using Velib' because it had a good UI to spot bikes and docks.

The Mobike system is global so it also works the same in other cities (one of the big Uber advantages: get a ride exactly the same way no matter where you are).

All in all I really like the concept. The Mobikes themselves, on the other hand, suck. They're way too small for a general western population. They're probably designed around the average asian height.

In London, the tidal effect of workers taking docked bikes east ensures that after 9.30 there are no bikes near the mainline stations. Should you find one and need to head east, you will have a hard time finding a docking space to leave it at.

As a frequent rider myself, dockless is way better for several reasons:

1. Much Lower Price: In my city, docked bikes start at $5 for 30 minutes. Dockless bikes are only $1!

2. Less wasted time: I can end my trip right where I want to go, not 3 blocks away at a dock (or even further if the dock is full or broken).

3. Ease of use: The docks in my city are clumsy, require swiping a credit card and entering a code to use, and make it hard to get the bikes to unlock and release. The dockless bikes use a modern app and the bikes unlock instantly.

4. Choice of vehicle type: Several of the dockless providers here also have electric-assist bikes and electric-powered scooters scattered around - much better for hills! The scooters especially are very popular here.

I'm in no way affiliated with any company in this space. I just think the dockless companies have a MUCH better product in nearly every way from a rider's point of view. It's like the convenience jump between old-school taxis that you have to call and then take 2 hours to show up and refuse to take credit cards compared with ubiquitous ride-share that shows up in 2 minutes and everything happens instantly in an app.

Perhaps it makes a difference if you sign up for an annual membership. The cost is only $8 a month which pays for itself in a couple days.

Do dockless companies have the option for an annual membership?

If you are a frequent rider I assume you are responsible with where you leave your bike, but you must have noticed how other rides simply dump their bikes wherever they please (in the middle of sidewalks, streets, or even hanging from trees). https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/How-Is-This-Not-Lit...

If everyone behaved responsibly it would work much better, but the sad truth is people pay a dollar or two so they don't care.

*In no way am I affiliated with any bike share company either, my friends just think I am because I won't stop talking about it!

> Mobike is the world’s first and largest dockless bike-sharing provider

World's first?

Please, DB has been operating one across Germany since 2000, 15 years before Mobike even existed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_a_Bike

link for the interested.

According to Call A Bike's terms, some locations require you to return the bike to the place where you started from, charging you a 5 EUR fee if you choose not to.

This seems to make Mobike's claims true, the first truly dockless service for all customers regardless of location.

https://www.callabike-interaktiv.de/pdf/connect/Price%20list...

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