7 ms·

CityBikes: bike sharing networks around the world

152 points by robbiet480 9y ago

orblivion 9y ago
This has been around for a while: https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdcategory=Navigation&fdid=be.brunoparmentier.openbikesharing.app&fdpage=3 https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdcategory=Navigation... I guess this is the API it uses. It's pretty impressive. Seemingly hundreds of bike sharing systems are on this thing. It uses OSM for the background, and gives you a reading on how many bikes are at a given station.
sker 9y ago
Isn't bike sharing huge in China? Edit: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/22/bike-wars-dockless-china-millions-bicycles-hangzhou https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/22/bike-wars-doc... > the world’s 15 biggest public bike shares are ranked. Thirteen of them are in China.
- bizzleDawg 9y ago
  My local city has just got a slightly different type of bike sharing scheme where there are no stations/docks for the bikes, but you're allowed to leave them anywhere sensible [1]. From other articles including the guardian one linked above, it seems that this a model that's been used in China and certainly seems to have proven very rapidly scalable. I guess in these cases it's quite difficult, since it's likely not feasible to update the locations of individual bikes for these guys. I've checked their map and Bristol, UK doesn't appear to show YoBike at the moment, however it's only been in action for a few weeks. [1]: https://yobike.co.uk/ https://yobike.co.uk/
  - andrewshadura 9y ago
    There's a similar system in Prague and Brno, Rekola.
freyfogle 9y ago
This bike share visualization is also very good, has many different cities and lets you replay them over time http://bikes.oobrien.com/global.php#zoom=3&lon=-60.0000&lat=25.0000 http://bikes.oobrien.com/global.php#zoom=3&lon=-60.0000&lat=...
mental_ 9y ago
It doesn't seem very consistent. Lots of points in Latin America but when you zoom in, they are all gone.
- notatoad 9y ago
  I think you're just seeing a poor design choice: the purple dots they use to indicate cities with bike shares are very visible at the whole-world zoom level, but virtually impossible to see when you've zoomed in because they're the same size and in the same location as the map's default city marker.
- dep_b 9y ago
  Rosario Argentina seems pretty up to date looking at street level. But the city markers just disappear.
fao_ 9y ago
I read: "bike shedding networks around the world", and I thought "Don't they just call those internet forums?".
- bbcbasic 9y ago
  Ha ha
alexashka 9y ago
This is great. I wish more things were universal like this :)
martgnz 9y ago
Great project, it seems that some companies —like Citymapper— use the API[0]. Would be nice if they also contributed with code or supported the author. [0]: https://citybik.es/projects https://citybik.es/projects
stephenboyd 9y ago
They should remove Seattle's entry here. The Pronto network was cancelled in March due to disuse. https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/01/seattle-bike-share-pronto-goes-under/513575/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/01/seattle-bike-...
- robbiet480 9y ago
  Weirdly there was a pull request [1] merged already to remove Pronto, not sure why it's still appearing... [1]: https://github.com/eskerda/pybikes/pull/242 https://github.com/eskerda/pybikes/pull/242
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- jchanimal 9y ago
  Seattle has a mandatory helmet law. Are there any successful bike shares in places with helmet laws?
  - Tiktaalik 9y ago
    Vancouver's seems to be pretty successful and BC has a bike helmet law. Vancouver's Mobi bike system did a good job with their messaging around helmets to make it optional to users. There is a helmet attached to each bike lock, and a convenient basket on the bike where you can put the helmet if you don't want to use it.
  - r3bl 9y ago
    Yes, when those laws are in place, but almost never actually enforced. Nextbike[0] is extremely popular in my city, even though my country has a helmet law in place. They also offer a bike for 30 minutes per day completely free (you can also rent two bikes for free at the same time), so that alone makes it a pretty easy way to travel through half a city without paying a dime. Not a day goes by without me seeing one[1]. As far as my experience goes, the country did try heavily enforcing the helmet law when they first introduced it (about a decade ago), now it seems to me like the police simply doesn't care if you're wearing a helmet or not. Of course, if you commit any other traffic violation on a bike, you can be pretty damn sure that they're gonna bundle it with "not wearing a helmet" fine. [0] https://nextbike.com/ https://nextbike.com/ [1] I live within a walking distance from the place I work in, so there's no need for me to use one every day.
Kiro 9y ago
How is the data gathered? In Stockholm all three items were in the middle of the water without any real information. The names sounded faux and were ungooglable.
- kmike84 9y ago
  Data is scraped from various sources (APIs, websites). Code is public: https://github.com/eskerda/pybikes https://github.com/eskerda/pybikes.
  - harveypoyntz 9y ago
    Thank you
ubikretail 9y ago
I built an app over it that attempts to predict the future state of any network. It later recommends addings/substractions in order to keep offer and demand balanced among stations. It could work in about 440 cities but none of the big companies that lead this wanted this. What would you do with it?
- dwightgunning 9y ago
  That depends why they don't want it. Did any explain this? Maybe you're not articulating the value prop? That'll be a good way to decide whether to keep trying to sell to them, what to change etc. If you've exhausted that you may look at other applications for the technology.
  - ubikretail 9y ago
    I found two reasons here: - They make money by using bikes as advertising space, so they do not really care about the overall quality of the system as long as they have a permanent exploitation contract. - They use historic data to approach future situations. In spite they do not have alert systems, they seem to think this is enough. Although, when sun suddenly appears, the shore tends to get crowded and "locked" for hours; they doing nothing about it. What my system was going to provide was smart routes for the vans, to add or subtract bikes on strategic places.
- Grue3 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure all these companies already have a system like that. The problem is actually getting the bikes moved given the amount of personnel/vans they have.
- jpl56 9y ago
  This is interesting, because when I'm in front of an empty station, the app would tell me when I get a chance to have someone park a bike. With an app telling me it should happen in less than 2mn, I can wait confidently. My network : Velib, Paris.
averagewall 9y ago
It should be called "around the rest of the world" since it omits the biggest and hyper competitive bikeshares in some Chinese cities.
- yorwba 9y ago
  Since the info is scraped from the respective official websites, the Chinese networks will only be added once someone puts in the work to reverse-engineer their apps.
AU_Wow1gle 9y ago
If you guys know what the competition is for bikeshares in China, you will know this is probably not real...
- spraak 9y ago
  Can you elaborate?
  - AU_Wow1gle 9y ago
    https://www.ft.com/content/5efe95f6-0aeb-11e7-97d1-5e720a26771b?mhq5j=e1 https://www.ft.com/content/5efe95f6-0aeb-11e7-97d1-5e720a267...
    - spraak 9y ago
      Paywalled link
irrational 9y ago
Portland just has one because Nike bought all the bikes. That is why they are all in Nike orange.
mrtimo 9y ago
Just spent 3 weeks in 6 cities in China. Ofo and Mobike seems to be the biggest bike share companies. There is also a company that makes electric bikes (with hub motor) available for bike share. How they work: 1. Pay a deposit (99 RMB for Ofo, 299 RMB for Mobike) and register 2. Scan the QR code to unlock the bike -Mobike will unlock automatically- Ofo will send a pin to your phone that you can use to unlock the bike. 3. When you are done, just lock up your bike (rear wheel) and leave it anywhere. In Shanghai it was common to see incensed security Guards dragging bikes off premises. Bikes definitely do clutter up precious walking space.
jakob223 9y ago
Stockholm's bikes all seem to be underwater? But I rode one yesterday so I don't think they're actually underwater..
- kh_hk 9y ago
  Seems Stockholm's system in Citybikes were the remnants of a test project by JCDecaux, which was providing the data. The actual project on Stockholm is run (or at least used to be) by ClearChannel. Actually, many years ago we supported Stockholm's system but stopped doing so after receiving a C&D by, apparently, a sole guy that had permission to use the data in exchange for providing the apps. Most possibly the situation has changed (this was more than 5 years ago) but it left an aftertaste that has stopped me from adding it. A PR to the project for adding Stockholm would be welcome, though. // Disclaimer: citybikes
stuaxo 9y ago
Why are there 2 in London?
- kh_hk 9y ago
  In case you mean the dot just next to London, that's a town named Slough, with their own bike share system. By clicking on the dots you can actually zoom in on the systems. Here are some links with these zoomed in: - https://citybik.es/map/santander-cycles https://citybik.es/map/santander-cycles - https://citybik.es/map/cycle-hire-slough https://citybik.es/map/cycle-hire-slough
  - stuaxo 9y ago
    No, I actually zoomed right into street level in central London and could see two bikes. I just assumed it was a different system to Santander cycles, so thought it should be zero. To reproduce go to https://citybik.es/ https://citybik.es/ Don't type in anything, just zoom/pan until you get to central London.
Grustaf 9y ago
Great list! Donkey Republic ("global" but from Copenhagen) is missing though: https://www.donkey.bike https://www.donkey.bike And the one in Stockholm, whose domain is very close to yours! http://www.citybikes.se http://www.citybikes.se
andrewshadura 9y ago
I think I have to mention this: http://opensourcebikeshare.com/ http://opensourcebikeshare.com/
- acover 9y ago
  It's really tempting to buy a few $99 bikes from Walmart and setup a bike share.
  - Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y ago
    Those bikes would become inoperable within days, and could present significant legal liability. Citibikes and such are quite heavy because they must withstand a lot of abuse. The quality of 'department store' bikes are very low; they're often not even assembled correctly.
    - acover 9y ago
      Anecdote: I've logged hundreds of hours on mine. An LLC, waiver and self inspection might avoid the liability. This is just too complicated though.
    - andrewshadura 9y ago
      Obviously, there needs to be a maintenance team.

152 points by robbiet480 9y ago

This has been around for a while: https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdcategory=Navigation&fdid=be.brunoparmentier.openbikesharing.app&fdpage=3 https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdcategory=Navigation... I guess this is the API it uses. It's pretty impressive. Seemingly hundreds of bike sharing systems are on this thing. It uses OSM for the background, and gives you a reading on how many bikes are at a given station.

sker 9y ago

Isn't bike sharing huge in China? Edit: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/22/bike-wars-dockless-china-millions-bicycles-hangzhou https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/22/bike-wars-doc... > the world’s 15 biggest public bike shares are ranked. Thirteen of them are in China.

bizzleDawg 9y ago
My local city has just got a slightly different type of bike sharing scheme where there are no stations/docks for the bikes, but you're allowed to leave them anywhere sensible [1]. From other articles including the guardian one linked above, it seems that this a model that's been used in China and certainly seems to have proven very rapidly scalable. I guess in these cases it's quite difficult, since it's likely not feasible to update the locations of individual bikes for these guys. I've checked their map and Bristol, UK doesn't appear to show YoBike at the moment, however it's only been in action for a few weeks. [1]: https://yobike.co.uk/ https://yobike.co.uk/
- andrewshadura 9y ago
  There's a similar system in Prague and Brno, Rekola.

freyfogle 9y ago

This bike share visualization is also very good, has many different cities and lets you replay them over time http://bikes.oobrien.com/global.php#zoom=3&lon=-60.0000&lat=25.0000 http://bikes.oobrien.com/global.php#zoom=3&lon=-60.0000&lat=...

mental_ 9y ago

It doesn't seem very consistent. Lots of points in Latin America but when you zoom in, they are all gone.

notatoad 9y ago
I think you're just seeing a poor design choice: the purple dots they use to indicate cities with bike shares are very visible at the whole-world zoom level, but virtually impossible to see when you've zoomed in because they're the same size and in the same location as the map's default city marker.
dep_b 9y ago
Rosario Argentina seems pretty up to date looking at street level. But the city markers just disappear.

fao_ 9y ago

I read: "bike shedding networks around the world", and I thought "Don't they just call those internet forums?".

bbcbasic 9y ago
Ha ha

alexashka 9y ago

This is great. I wish more things were universal like this :)

martgnz 9y ago

Great project, it seems that some companies —like Citymapper— use the API[0]. Would be nice if they also contributed with code or supported the author. [0]: https://citybik.es/projects https://citybik.es/projects

stephenboyd 9y ago

They should remove Seattle's entry here. The Pronto network was cancelled in March due to disuse. https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/01/seattle-bike-share-pronto-goes-under/513575/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/01/seattle-bike-...

robbiet480 9y ago
Weirdly there was a pull request [1] merged already to remove Pronto, not sure why it's still appearing... [1]: https://github.com/eskerda/pybikes/pull/242 https://github.com/eskerda/pybikes/pull/242
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
jchanimal 9y ago
Seattle has a mandatory helmet law. Are there any successful bike shares in places with helmet laws?
- Tiktaalik 9y ago
  Vancouver's seems to be pretty successful and BC has a bike helmet law. Vancouver's Mobi bike system did a good job with their messaging around helmets to make it optional to users. There is a helmet attached to each bike lock, and a convenient basket on the bike where you can put the helmet if you don't want to use it.
- r3bl 9y ago
  Yes, when those laws are in place, but almost never actually enforced. Nextbike[0] is extremely popular in my city, even though my country has a helmet law in place. They also offer a bike for 30 minutes per day completely free (you can also rent two bikes for free at the same time), so that alone makes it a pretty easy way to travel through half a city without paying a dime. Not a day goes by without me seeing one[1]. As far as my experience goes, the country did try heavily enforcing the helmet law when they first introduced it (about a decade ago), now it seems to me like the police simply doesn't care if you're wearing a helmet or not. Of course, if you commit any other traffic violation on a bike, you can be pretty damn sure that they're gonna bundle it with "not wearing a helmet" fine. [0] https://nextbike.com/ https://nextbike.com/ [1] I live within a walking distance from the place I work in, so there's no need for me to use one every day.

Kiro 9y ago

How is the data gathered? In Stockholm all three items were in the middle of the water without any real information. The names sounded faux and were ungooglable.

kmike84 9y ago
Data is scraped from various sources (APIs, websites). Code is public: https://github.com/eskerda/pybikes https://github.com/eskerda/pybikes.
- harveypoyntz 9y ago
  Thank you

ubikretail 9y ago

I built an app over it that attempts to predict the future state of any network. It later recommends addings/substractions in order to keep offer and demand balanced among stations. It could work in about 440 cities but none of the big companies that lead this wanted this. What would you do with it?

dwightgunning 9y ago
That depends why they don't want it. Did any explain this? Maybe you're not articulating the value prop? That'll be a good way to decide whether to keep trying to sell to them, what to change etc. If you've exhausted that you may look at other applications for the technology.
- ubikretail 9y ago
  I found two reasons here: - They make money by using bikes as advertising space, so they do not really care about the overall quality of the system as long as they have a permanent exploitation contract. - They use historic data to approach future situations. In spite they do not have alert systems, they seem to think this is enough. Although, when sun suddenly appears, the shore tends to get crowded and "locked" for hours; they doing nothing about it. What my system was going to provide was smart routes for the vans, to add or subtract bikes on strategic places.
Grue3 9y ago
I'm pretty sure all these companies already have a system like that. The problem is actually getting the bikes moved given the amount of personnel/vans they have.
jpl56 9y ago
This is interesting, because when I'm in front of an empty station, the app would tell me when I get a chance to have someone park a bike. With an app telling me it should happen in less than 2mn, I can wait confidently. My network : Velib, Paris.

averagewall 9y ago

It should be called "around the rest of the world" since it omits the biggest and hyper competitive bikeshares in some Chinese cities.

yorwba 9y ago
Since the info is scraped from the respective official websites, the Chinese networks will only be added once someone puts in the work to reverse-engineer their apps.

AU_Wow1gle 9y ago

If you guys know what the competition is for bikeshares in China, you will know this is probably not real...

spraak 9y ago
Can you elaborate?
- AU_Wow1gle 9y ago
  https://www.ft.com/content/5efe95f6-0aeb-11e7-97d1-5e720a26771b?mhq5j=e1 https://www.ft.com/content/5efe95f6-0aeb-11e7-97d1-5e720a267...
  - spraak 9y ago
    Paywalled link

irrational 9y ago

Portland just has one because Nike bought all the bikes. That is why they are all in Nike orange.

mrtimo 9y ago

Just spent 3 weeks in 6 cities in China. Ofo and Mobike seems to be the biggest bike share companies. There is also a company that makes electric bikes (with hub motor) available for bike share. How they work: 1. Pay a deposit (99 RMB for Ofo, 299 RMB for Mobike) and register 2. Scan the QR code to unlock the bike -Mobike will unlock automatically- Ofo will send a pin to your phone that you can use to unlock the bike. 3. When you are done, just lock up your bike (rear wheel) and leave it anywhere. In Shanghai it was common to see incensed security Guards dragging bikes off premises. Bikes definitely do clutter up precious walking space.

jakob223 9y ago

Stockholm's bikes all seem to be underwater? But I rode one yesterday so I don't think they're actually underwater..

kh_hk 9y ago
Seems Stockholm's system in Citybikes were the remnants of a test project by JCDecaux, which was providing the data. The actual project on Stockholm is run (or at least used to be) by ClearChannel. Actually, many years ago we supported Stockholm's system but stopped doing so after receiving a C&D by, apparently, a sole guy that had permission to use the data in exchange for providing the apps. Most possibly the situation has changed (this was more than 5 years ago) but it left an aftertaste that has stopped me from adding it. A PR to the project for adding Stockholm would be welcome, though. // Disclaimer: citybikes

stuaxo 9y ago

Why are there 2 in London?

kh_hk 9y ago
In case you mean the dot just next to London, that's a town named Slough, with their own bike share system. By clicking on the dots you can actually zoom in on the systems. Here are some links with these zoomed in: - https://citybik.es/map/santander-cycles https://citybik.es/map/santander-cycles - https://citybik.es/map/cycle-hire-slough https://citybik.es/map/cycle-hire-slough
- stuaxo 9y ago
  No, I actually zoomed right into street level in central London and could see two bikes. I just assumed it was a different system to Santander cycles, so thought it should be zero. To reproduce go to https://citybik.es/ https://citybik.es/ Don't type in anything, just zoom/pan until you get to central London.

Grustaf 9y ago

Great list! Donkey Republic ("global" but from Copenhagen) is missing though: https://www.donkey.bike https://www.donkey.bike And the one in Stockholm, whose domain is very close to yours! http://www.citybikes.se http://www.citybikes.se

andrewshadura 9y ago

I think I have to mention this: http://opensourcebikeshare.com/ http://opensourcebikeshare.com/

acover 9y ago
It's really tempting to buy a few $99 bikes from Walmart and setup a bike share.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y ago
  Those bikes would become inoperable within days, and could present significant legal liability. Citibikes and such are quite heavy because they must withstand a lot of abuse. The quality of 'department store' bikes are very low; they're often not even assembled correctly.
  - acover 9y ago
    Anecdote: I've logged hundreds of hours on mine. An LLC, waiver and self inspection might avoid the liability. This is just too complicated though.
  - andrewshadura 9y ago
    Obviously, there needs to be a maintenance team.