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I think the success or failure depends on too many factors to just say "It won't work" based on the idea alone.

I remember that just a few years ago (in 2000), Amsterdam aborted a pilot program for public bicycles, because they all got stolen or vandalised [1]. Since 2006 a new nationwide scheme is being operated by the country's largest train company and it's doing great.

I currently live in London and the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme, operated by the TFL, is pretty successful. Successful enough to recently get expanded to cover a greater area [2]. It's not just popular with tourists, but also with people who use it to commute to work. I rarely see a bicycle vandalised and you have to be an idiot to steal one.

Some differences that I think make the London bicycles successful, whereas other plans failed:

1. To hire a bike, you need to either rent one on the spot, or become a member. In both cases, you are using a credit or debit card, knowing that you will be charged if the bike gets stolen or vandalised on your watch. They are also linked to your name.

2. Hiring a bike gets progressively expensive as you keep it longer, so you are likely to return it to a docking point sooner rather than later.

3. The bikes are ugly, heavy and instantly recognisable. Not something you'd like to keep home.

4. The bikes are built like tanks. I don't think it's easy to remove things like bicycle seats etc. at all.

5. The scheme only costs slightly over £50 a year. That is how much I pay in maintenance of my own bike.

6. Even if you buy a bike in London, you cannot always park it at your home or workplace. Renting allows you to bike and just park it in a docking station in the city.

The London bike plan also has plenty of problems (no available docking points, AARGH!), but overall it seems to work pretty well. I wouldn't discount the concept altogether.

[1] http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witte_fiets

[2] http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/newscentre/metro/18137...

Heh, the cure sounds worse than the disease. "Make the bikes so unpleasant that no will want to steal them (or use them)."

I agree that there is room for creativity here. There are so many things to try. For instance, I noticed that ViaCycle seems to be piloting on college campuses. Might it be possible to put docking stations _inside_ of academic buildings, requiring a college ID swipe to get in, and possibly being within viewing distance of a building attendant?

Having used the London bikes when I visited, they really aren't so bad. Not as good as the bike I have at home, but they do everything you'd want out of a beater bike. No one is racing them or anything, just going from one place to another.

We race them. But hey, each to his own.

There are quite a few cycle hire alleycats around the world. The London ones are fun.

One of my friends rode the Dunwich Dynamo on a cycle hire bike. 200km overnight on a bike that you couldn't service or fix a puncture on... pretty brave.

You are misunderstanding. The bikes are not at all unpleasant to ride (although they are quite heavy, they also feel very sturdy and resilient to all road conditions). They would however be very unpleasant to steal and own, because they are too different from normal bikes. It would be a pain in the ass to park them in the city or service them at home and everyone would recognise it as an out of place rental bike.

By the way, stashing bikes behind locked doors is actually what the "OV-fiets" plan in The Netherlands is doing (they are more like lockers, really: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PeUfIZbrzY4/Ti8hHZCsLyI/AAAAAAAAAE...), and it works quite well. As a bonus, you can also rent those lockers for your own bike.

Docking stations in buildings, you mean like the Brompton Dock?

http://www.bromptondock.co.uk/

Then you get one of the best folding bikes, perfectly good for general use too.

They have plans for long-term hires too so you can use a bike daily and guarantee it is there for your commute. In the UK these Brompton Docks are mostly located at rail stations so that you have a bike waiting for you at the end.

Have you tried them? They're quite useable. The sturdiness is great on Montreal's pothole strewn roads.

Montreal has the same system (Bixi), with exactly the same sturdy features as the London system. Some local management issues aside, the system is running quite smoothly.

It's a stretch to say "This will never work!" when something already is working, and avoiding the specific issues complained about.

Montreal Bixi is very, very, very far away from being profitable:

http://blogs.montrealgazette.com/2012/03/16/bixi-raising-mon...

From the article:

"In total, the Montreal operation will bring in $7.4 million. Bixi will spend $7.3 million on operations, marketing, administration and research and development."

That's for 2012. Projections aren't results, but things don't sound too far off. What are you basing your statement on?

One can expect a little bit of taxpayer subsidy in the future, since it is freeing up incredibly valuable road space that in most city centers is a limited resource that can't be expanded.

The best bike sharing program I've seen anywhere is in Copenhagen.

http://ruk.ca/content/how-use-copenhagen-city-bikes/

It's a free system, because the 20 kroner coin that is used to unlock the bike is released when the bike is returned. These bikes have 20-inch wheel, which are non-pneumatic. Single-gear with a coaster brake. And weigh about 50 pounds. Also built like tanks. As a tourist, it increased my enjoyment of the city by a factor of 10.

You're correct that like many new ideas, bike sharing has had it's growing pains. However, recent data suggests that it's more effective than many would have predicted.

Your article on Velib is from 2009, and while they did have a lot of theft early on, it was due to a design flaw. They've since fixed the problem and recently celebrated their 100 millionth ride. Also, theft hasn't been a problem at all in the US:

http://www.streetsblog.org/2010/11/29/theft-and-vandalism-ju...

A $1K bike may seem expensive, but they have a lot of differences from your local $100 Walmart cruiser. Our bikes are meant to last for years while being used 24/7 and withstanding any weather. They're also hardened against theft.

The financials are good as well. DC breaks even on operations, while Denver has made a sizable profit:

http://www.commuterpageblog.com/2012/02/capital-bikeshare-st...

Their main issue is high capital cost, which viaCycle solves. We can do a large city programs or let organizations install bikes on a grass-roots level, so you don't need to splash out $5+M to have reliable transportation.

I commute to work on bike every day, but I still am a happy member of my city's bike share program. Even though I have a bike locked in the garage under the building, I use bikeshare to go to meetings at other buildings in the city during the day. I would rather that my personal bike remain safe in my office building's guarded garage, rather than parked on the street. Also, heading into a meeting, it takes me 3 seconds to park a bikeshare bike at the station, as opposed to several minutes locking up my personal bike using a U-lock and cable. I know of other regular commuters who switched to using bikeshare for their commutes--the bikes may be slower, but you don't have to worry about maintenance or theft.

Essentially, I pay my membership fee so that someone else bears the risk of owning a bike in a city filled with vandals and thieves. It's a good deal.

If the bike is damaged or stolen while under your care are you not liable for it?

Or do you use these bikes going between destinations which have these bike stations so you don't expose yourself to any risk of leaving unattended?

You would typically do point-to-point trips between stations. Bixi Toronto has something like $500-$1000 liability if stolen, as I recall (less if recovered later presumably... the bikes stand out so it'd be rather difficult to pawn).

There are various ways to deal with this, and it can vary between programs. In general, the rider is responsible for ensuring the bicycle is kept in good order.

viaCycle's system allows riders to secure their bicycle between stations, so you're not forced to ride from to specific points until you're ready to check it back into the system. Enforcing a penalty for bikes that get stolen helps reinforce proper locking of the bicycle.

Counterpoints:

http://en.velib.paris.fr/

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/cycling/14808.aspx

http://www.citybikes.se/en/

http://www.dublinbikes.ie/

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

Not sure how those are counterpoints, in that they are all deeply unprofitable services provided by large governments that are subsidized to the tune of tens of millions of dollars per year. Maybe you should read my comment again.

I'm not sure how it matters that they're subsidized.

Cars are subsidized via road building/maintenance, after all, and it's likely to cost less to maintain a few bikes than it does to maintain roads/parking for the cars that would displace them.

Imagine if there were no transportation subsidies and road maintenance were privatized. A nightmare. It seems entirely reasonable that forms of transportation that can help bring tax revenues to a city are subsidized, and therefore entirely reasonable to create a start-up based in part on those subsidies.

HN isn't letting me comment on the reply to this, but in response - our systems can be subsidized if necessary. We're a B2B business right now, and sell to organizations that own/operate the programs. We're working on piloting our own consumer programs in places that are ripe to support them. Ultimately, bike sharing needs to make financial sense in one way or another, and we're confident our system does that.

I think there's a qualitative difference between a business model that can sustain itself and one that relies on rich backers to dump money into it every year, forever.

Isn't HN usually full of people saying you have to figure out what customers will pay for (meaning, what customers will pay more for than it costs you to provide)? Bike-sharing is not one of those things. End-user customers will not pay you more than it costs to provide.

"Customers" includes businesses -- and governments, for that matter.

A lot of successful start-ups don't sell to consumers at all. And kazevedo comments that they are in fact structured as a B2B start-up. [1]

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4387770

I agree that cities subsidizing a bike-sharing system can make sense. But that doesn't help ViaCycle, which is going to have trouble if they can't run the system at a profit, since unlike the city of Paris, they can't pay for it out of tax revenues.

Not all bike-sharing schemes have the same model.

For example, DC's capital bikeshare comes from Federal grants that covered the setup costs, while Velib in Paris is entirely operated by JCD, an advertising agency that operates the system in exchange for advertising rights.

Take Velib. Last time I checked, JCD had revenue of $54 million, with an operating expense of roughly $35 million on Velib. The theft and vandalism complaints were regrettably exaggerated when the City and JCD were re-negotiating their contract last year. That they need subsidies to exist is patently false.

Financial aspects of US systems are also healthy as pointed out by other commenters.

On a related note, the subsidies to other modes, mainly rail and roads, are several orders of magnitude higher.

While I wish I could comment in depth on the subject, I will add Rio de Janeiro to the list. Here, we have orange Itaú (a bank that sponsors the program) bicycles throughout the city and they're quite popular. You sign up online and they have some sort of integration with your smartphone. I was recently informed they are R$10 (US$5) per month on a monthly plan. The downside is, also from what I've heard, you have to dock them every hour and take another bike.

Here's a picture of them

http://www.bikehype.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/alugue...

and a supporting article

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/global-observer/take-two-for...

Also, they add benefits to a city that are not easily quantified. They make the city look like a nice place to live, which increases property values, and attracts labor to the workforce. (They still might not be worth it from a taxpayer's viewpoint.)

Dublin bikes is a huge success, but is heavily subsidised by a private firm in return for advertising space around the city, along with some local government investment.

If they are paying for ads, it is a subsidy? No one says Google is subsidized by AdWords customers.

Don't forget Denver: http://www.denverbikesharing.org/

Denver's bike share is a blessing, especially for visitors who don't have a rental car.

And Hubway in Boston and other cities.

Hubway is a Bixi system.

https://www.bicing.cat/

What city are you talking about? Many cities run successful bike-sharing programs, despite vandalism.

I'm in Montreal, and there aren't many bikes with missing parts. There are deflated tired, but that's about it.

It's not profitable domestically yet, but that seems more due to mismanagement than an underlying flaw.

> For $100 anyone can purchase a bicycle that will last indefinitely and be available 24/7/365.

Having a bike locked up at my apartment doesn't do me much good after walking downtown with friends. For $65, I can get an annual membership to the Minneapolis bike share program (Nice Ride MN, a Bixi system) and have bikes just waiting for me all over the city. It's awesome.

I know of so many bike theft stories from my friends in SF, that this program is attractive because of those stories. It won't be your typical $100 bike-shaped-object and for $80/yr you can avoid all the bike theft, ownership and maintenance costs and stress.

If you check out a bike, and it disappears, you're responsible for it.

So instead of a $100 headache, you now have a $1500 headache.

You do avoid maintenance costs, of course. Which are $0/year for many bicyclists.

These things are self locking, so you release it as soon as you leave it unattended and are not liable anymore. If you had to look for a docking station, it would be not practical.

How does zipcar handle car theft?

Zipcar buys insurance and GPS/cellular tracking devices.

Nobody who bikes regularly or serious owns a $100 bike. Good bikes start at around $1500, which is why bikes are such frequent targets for theft.

Sounds like a No True Scotsman fallacy to me. I've commuted daily for years, plus occasional longer trips, on a used bike that cost $150 (plus another $100 to add lock, rear rack, fenders and lights). Maintenance may be a little bit more with a used bike, but it rides great.

My $400 bike does me well enough.

Somehow car rentals do work - people don't blow up/sell/break rental cars. I can't imagine why bike rentals won't work. It will work only in the area with a lot of tourists/other visitors, because locals will buy bikes if they want to ride them.

The bike rental market is very different from car rental market. Economists have been discussing it recently. Here is one guy's take (with comments providing their own theories): http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/07/bike_rental_vs.h...

Despite owning my own bike, I have considered signing up for DC's bikeshare program (havent pulled the trigger yet; just moved here). A couple advantages for me:

  - I don't have to worry about my own (rather nice) bike getting stolen
  - I don't have to lug around a lock+chain for short trips.
  - I'm not stuck with my bike if I use another means for the return trip 
    (e.g., going to a bar, then cabbing home or hitching a ride)

The main negative, aside from the subscription fee, is that the bikes supposedly weigh a ton and are far from smooth rides.

When I first moved here I was amazed by the number of people that use the program. I'm quite curious about the actual municipal cost, though-- especially as a before/after comparison. Also would be interested in other effects. For instance, did it decrease parking woes? Increase public transportation usage? Cause more traffic accidents?

Welcome to DC!

Sign up for CaBi - if for no other reason than it helps prevent you arriving at your destination looking like a sweathog from the walk from the metro.

I was thinking the same... although with a little less doom & gloom. One of the reasons ZipCar, et al. have been successful is they exist in places where owning a car is impractical (infrequent use vs. price tag, upkeep & parking fees) so short term, ad hoc rental is optimal. If you remove the costs (since bikes can be pretty cheap, low maintenance and easy to store in your domicile) infrequent use does not make bike ownership nearly as impractical as car ownership. I could see moderate success in a tourist market. I could see jumping on BART into SF and renting a bike to ride around for the day. Those services exist but not in a "self serve" capacity like ViaCycle.

If you read the TC article, the firm intends to make money selling services to cities, universities, etc just as you suggest.

The end-user price points are just examples of what's feasible if you buy their products.

Number 1 is that people who ride bikes don't rent them, they own them.

I own several bicycles, but if I don't ride one to work, I can't ride one home. Due to my schedule, I often don't ride to work in the morning, but I would gladly ride home. A bike sharing program solves that problem. $20 a month? Well worth it.

I hope someone lives near you and likes to bike to work but not home. Otherwise all these bikes will pool in gravity wells.

I work in Manhattan and live right by the Brooklyn Bridge, so I think the tourists will take care of this problem for me.

I own a bike. Actually two. But even with two bikes I do not have one available 24/7 because sometimes I have to use different transportation. Then I am somewhere and my bikes are somewhere else. If it wasn't for a monthly fee I'd sign up for the service in my city and use it about once a week.

In a world of nay-sayers, the entrepreneur is king.

Very interesting information regarding monetization strategies and several problems regarding theft and vandalism of a network of the same kind in Paris: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A9lib

They are already succeeding in other markets, such as Atlanta. Met these guys at StartupRiot last year and they (a) had great growth and fundamentals, (b) were wicked smart, and (c) had a great product that users love. Wouldn't bet against this team.

I see what you did there, citing 3-year old articles on the start-up problems of then-brand new bike services. Of course, as you can see from other comments, those bike services no longer have those problems, and appear to even be quite successful. It's sort of like the difference between Groupon 3 years ago and Groupon today, but in reverse.

I hate the idea of promoting cycling (roads are for cars, not bikes), but there's nothing about what ViaCycle is doing that suggests it is doomed to failure.

> roads are for cars, not bikes

I agree roads are mostly designed with only cars in mind.

That sounds like a bug, not a feature.

> (roads are for cars, not bikes)

That's one of the reasons cyclists prefer streets over roads :)