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How do people who've used it feel about the dockless iteration of bike sharing? I've never had occasion to try it, but I'm very skeptical. It seems like lettin

How do people who've used it feel about the dockless iteration of bike sharing? I've never had occasion to try it, but I'm very skeptical. It seems like letting people leave the bike more-or-less wherever is optimizing the end-of-ride experience at the expense of pretty much every other part of the operation aside from actually riding the bike. I don't think I'd want to start my morning commute by hunting around in an app for a nearby bike (and hoping there is one) and then wandering around my neighborhood trying to locate it. I'd much rather have the consistency of walking to a known location near my house and grabbing a bike that I know will be there. I also don't know that, as someone who has to use the sidewalks when not riding, I'd want to have these things just scattered all over the place. Which I fear would be the case. When people are parking these things, it's not _their_ bike, so they won't be so worried about doing a good job of it. Last, having the bikes scattered at random has got to really do a number on the logistics costs. Going to a relatively constrained list of known locations to retrieve bikes that are due for maintenance sounds a lot cheaper to me than having to drive all over the city, possibly including going to places where the van can't go like random spots in the middle of public parks.

pbreit 9y ago
Scoot works pretty well with this model. I would much rather have a shot at getting a nearby bike than consistently walking a distance.
wukerplank 9y ago
As a citizen I HATE dockless rental bikes. No wonder city councils start to throw them out again. Worst case they clog up bike stands, worst case they clog up entries to parks, get thrown into rivers, etc. It seems they attract the least disciplined kinds of people.
mmahemoff 9y ago
If you think about where mobile tech is 10 years from now, I think the direction makes sense. It's likely most people will be using some form of augmented reality + voice assistants, in which case locating a bike won't be very cumbersome. I think we should/will end up with lots of "virtual" parking areas, e.g. one on every block. It would be similar to the virtual commuting "bus line" type routes Uber and Lift are creating, which establish some day-to-day stability, but can easily be updated every few months according to demand. Virtual parking areas would keep things less cluttered and easier to locate, but can still be distributed closely together.
foolfoolz 9y ago
dockless is the only future of bike share. the one way fan out of morning and then night commute ensures transport hubs will never have enough docks to scale. if 600 ppl take a train to a station with 20-50 bike slots there’s no way you will have reliable access. i think most of your comments are FUD. people are inherently good
- bunderbunder 9y ago
  Your example actually makes me feel even worse about dockless bike sharing. If 600 people take a bike to a train station in my city and then leave them there, that would completely block access to the train station, use of the sidewalk around it, and possibly part of the street in front. I don't know if docks are an essential part of the formula - I'm a bit worried about how inherently monopolistic the dock model is - but the dockless model seems like it is inherently in conflict with the idea of keeping the public right-of-way clear for public use. Real estate around places like train stations and major destinations is scarce, and companies really shouldn't have unlimited ability to use that space for storing their equipment, free of charge. I suppose the city or private property owners could reserve the right to collect nuisance bikes and hold them for bond, sort of like towing improperly parked cars. If bike sharing companies hold the person who got the bike "towed" responsible for any fees resulting from where they left the bike, similar to what would happen with a car share program, then maybe that would do the trick.
  - Symbiote 9y ago
    > keeping the public right-of-way clear for public use Plenty of railway stations (plenty of streets!) surround themselves with car parking, which is a much less efficient use of space compared with bicycle parking. Here [1] is above the underground Nørreport station in Copenhagen. Not the main station, but the second busiest. Lots of designated bicycle parking, but the latent demand is probably higher than what's available. At some point, the hassle of finding a place to leave the bicycle outweighs the delay with simply walking through the city centre, just like driving a car. "Nuisance" bicycles get damaged, so there's pressure not to leave them in the way. In the proper bike rack, or within an area of bike racks, or leaning against a building, seems to count as a proper area. Anywhere else, the bike might get knocked over and not righted. Then the wheels end up tacoed. But really, for any city that isn't Copenhagen or Amsterdam, converting some car parking spaces into 8-10 bicycle spaces each should leave plenty of room for bicycles. [1] https://pricetags.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/norreport-5.jpg https://pricetags.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/norreport-5.jp...
ISL 9y ago
Dockless bikes in Seattle, in my experience, are a net win. The downsides really are only haphazardly-parked bikes and large aggregations of bikes in popular destinations. When those aren't problematic, it's great.
- rconti 9y ago
  eg, at the waterfront, not uphill.
subpixel 9y ago
In NYC, there are precious few objects to lock a bike to at street level. Locking your bike to a street sign is illegal. I have no idea where thousands of Uber bikes might wind up.
icebraining 9y ago
the consistency of walking to a known location near my house and grabbing a bike that I know will be there. Unfortunately docks don't really provide that, I've had the misfortune of finding an empty dock more than once. It's one of the reasons that drove me to buy my own bike. Still, it probably beats dockless.
edaemon 9y ago
I've never used one myself but I've seen a lot of criticism of the Chinese implementation of dockless shared bikes. Here's a video that summarizes the problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdsb2wwn-7g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdsb2wwn-7g (you only need to watch a few minutes to get the idea) The purpose is to have them everywhere so they're easy to find, but that's also the problem -- if you have too many companies involved, or an irresponsible company involved that just dumps bikes in the city, there are too many bikes. Bikes get left on sidewalks, in streets, in parks, etc. The docked bike share systems don't have that problem because you have to return them to a designated location, but obviously it makes the bikes less ubiquitous. Portland has a pretty good system where there are many stations, but if a station is full you can lock it at a nearby public rack for free (the station knows it's full). You can also drop it off at any random public rack in the service area for $2. The app tells you where all the available bikes are: https://www.biketownpdx.com/map https://www.biketownpdx.com/map
AndrewWarner 9y ago
Hunting bikes down can be a pain. Someone left one at the bike depot near my office and I spent 20 minutes trying to find it before giving up. That problem should go away when there are more bikes, but as others have said here, then it might lead to crowding issues.
blhack 9y ago
Absolutely love them. I wish there were more available near my house (in Tempe, Arizona. Essentially on Arizona State University's campus). >I'd much rather have the consistency of walking to a known location near my house and grabbing a bike that I know will be there. At least in Tempe, there are competing/complimentary services. One of them is exactly like this (Grid Bikes, is the name). >I also don't know that, as someone who has to use the sidewalks when not riding, I'd want to have these things just scattered all over the place. I haven't seen this be a problem yet. Although I have to be honest, if I saw a bike in the sidewalk, I would probably just move it to somewhere more convenient so that nobody else had to deal with it. Sidewalks are community spaecs, and I'd hope that most people would treat them that way. >Last, having the bikes scattered at random has got to really do a number on the logistics costs. Going to a relatively constrained list of known locations to retrieve bikes that are due for maintenance sounds a lot cheaper to me than having to drive all over the city, possibly including going to places where the van can't go like random spots in the middle of public parks. Apparently some of the Chinese hubless bike companies have a solution for this: they offer you a bounty (of ride credit) to go and fetch them broken, or out of the way bikes. Pretty cool! I haven't seen that on any of the US services yet.
osdiab 9y ago
I lived in China for 4 months and it was the greatest. No matter where I was in the country I had access to bikes. I was able to get cheaper housing away from bustling transit stations but within 5 minutes of biking, and just bike to the stations, for minimal cost, which meant that I saved a huge amount of money on rent, got some exercise, and just generally enjoyed my experience living in Chinese cities more. When I traveled around the country I still could use the bikes, and I had no worries of whether or not my bike would be stolen. It opened up a bunch of possibilities for me. The dumping and chaos is certainly a problem but I'm confident those details can be solved if city governments are willing to play ball. I've heard in China a lot of the dumping is by city employees who need to fix something but bikes are in the way, so they toss them into piles—but that kind of thing seems like a logistical detail, not an inherent aspect of the system.

pbreit 9y ago

Scoot works pretty well with this model. I would much rather have a shot at getting a nearby bike than consistently walking a distance.

wukerplank 9y ago

As a citizen I HATE dockless rental bikes. No wonder city councils start to throw them out again. Worst case they clog up bike stands, worst case they clog up entries to parks, get thrown into rivers, etc. It seems they attract the least disciplined kinds of people.

mmahemoff 9y ago

If you think about where mobile tech is 10 years from now, I think the direction makes sense. It's likely most people will be using some form of augmented reality + voice assistants, in which case locating a bike won't be very cumbersome. I think we should/will end up with lots of "virtual" parking areas, e.g. one on every block. It would be similar to the virtual commuting "bus line" type routes Uber and Lift are creating, which establish some day-to-day stability, but can easily be updated every few months according to demand. Virtual parking areas would keep things less cluttered and easier to locate, but can still be distributed closely together.

foolfoolz 9y ago

dockless is the only future of bike share. the one way fan out of morning and then night commute ensures transport hubs will never have enough docks to scale. if 600 ppl take a train to a station with 20-50 bike slots there’s no way you will have reliable access. i think most of your comments are FUD. people are inherently good

bunderbunder 9y ago
Your example actually makes me feel even worse about dockless bike sharing. If 600 people take a bike to a train station in my city and then leave them there, that would completely block access to the train station, use of the sidewalk around it, and possibly part of the street in front. I don't know if docks are an essential part of the formula - I'm a bit worried about how inherently monopolistic the dock model is - but the dockless model seems like it is inherently in conflict with the idea of keeping the public right-of-way clear for public use. Real estate around places like train stations and major destinations is scarce, and companies really shouldn't have unlimited ability to use that space for storing their equipment, free of charge. I suppose the city or private property owners could reserve the right to collect nuisance bikes and hold them for bond, sort of like towing improperly parked cars. If bike sharing companies hold the person who got the bike "towed" responsible for any fees resulting from where they left the bike, similar to what would happen with a car share program, then maybe that would do the trick.
- Symbiote 9y ago
  > keeping the public right-of-way clear for public use Plenty of railway stations (plenty of streets!) surround themselves with car parking, which is a much less efficient use of space compared with bicycle parking. Here [1] is above the underground Nørreport station in Copenhagen. Not the main station, but the second busiest. Lots of designated bicycle parking, but the latent demand is probably higher than what's available. At some point, the hassle of finding a place to leave the bicycle outweighs the delay with simply walking through the city centre, just like driving a car. "Nuisance" bicycles get damaged, so there's pressure not to leave them in the way. In the proper bike rack, or within an area of bike racks, or leaning against a building, seems to count as a proper area. Anywhere else, the bike might get knocked over and not righted. Then the wheels end up tacoed. But really, for any city that isn't Copenhagen or Amsterdam, converting some car parking spaces into 8-10 bicycle spaces each should leave plenty of room for bicycles. [1] https://pricetags.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/norreport-5.jpg https://pricetags.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/norreport-5.jp...

ISL 9y ago

Dockless bikes in Seattle, in my experience, are a net win. The downsides really are only haphazardly-parked bikes and large aggregations of bikes in popular destinations. When those aren't problematic, it's great.

rconti 9y ago
eg, at the waterfront, not uphill.

subpixel 9y ago

In NYC, there are precious few objects to lock a bike to at street level. Locking your bike to a street sign is illegal. I have no idea where thousands of Uber bikes might wind up.

icebraining 9y ago

the consistency of walking to a known location near my house and grabbing a bike that I know will be there. Unfortunately docks don't really provide that, I've had the misfortune of finding an empty dock more than once. It's one of the reasons that drove me to buy my own bike. Still, it probably beats dockless.

edaemon 9y ago

I've never used one myself but I've seen a lot of criticism of the Chinese implementation of dockless shared bikes. Here's a video that summarizes the problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdsb2wwn-7g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdsb2wwn-7g (you only need to watch a few minutes to get the idea) The purpose is to have them everywhere so they're easy to find, but that's also the problem -- if you have too many companies involved, or an irresponsible company involved that just dumps bikes in the city, there are too many bikes. Bikes get left on sidewalks, in streets, in parks, etc. The docked bike share systems don't have that problem because you have to return them to a designated location, but obviously it makes the bikes less ubiquitous. Portland has a pretty good system where there are many stations, but if a station is full you can lock it at a nearby public rack for free (the station knows it's full). You can also drop it off at any random public rack in the service area for $2. The app tells you where all the available bikes are: https://www.biketownpdx.com/map https://www.biketownpdx.com/map

AndrewWarner 9y ago

Hunting bikes down can be a pain. Someone left one at the bike depot near my office and I spent 20 minutes trying to find it before giving up. That problem should go away when there are more bikes, but as others have said here, then it might lead to crowding issues.

blhack 9y ago

Absolutely love them. I wish there were more available near my house (in Tempe, Arizona. Essentially on Arizona State University's campus). >I'd much rather have the consistency of walking to a known location near my house and grabbing a bike that I know will be there. At least in Tempe, there are competing/complimentary services. One of them is exactly like this (Grid Bikes, is the name). >I also don't know that, as someone who has to use the sidewalks when not riding, I'd want to have these things just scattered all over the place. I haven't seen this be a problem yet. Although I have to be honest, if I saw a bike in the sidewalk, I would probably just move it to somewhere more convenient so that nobody else had to deal with it. Sidewalks are community spaecs, and I'd hope that most people would treat them that way. >Last, having the bikes scattered at random has got to really do a number on the logistics costs. Going to a relatively constrained list of known locations to retrieve bikes that are due for maintenance sounds a lot cheaper to me than having to drive all over the city, possibly including going to places where the van can't go like random spots in the middle of public parks. Apparently some of the Chinese hubless bike companies have a solution for this: they offer you a bounty (of ride credit) to go and fetch them broken, or out of the way bikes. Pretty cool! I haven't seen that on any of the US services yet.

osdiab 9y ago

I lived in China for 4 months and it was the greatest. No matter where I was in the country I had access to bikes. I was able to get cheaper housing away from bustling transit stations but within 5 minutes of biking, and just bike to the stations, for minimal cost, which meant that I saved a huge amount of money on rent, got some exercise, and just generally enjoyed my experience living in Chinese cities more. When I traveled around the country I still could use the bikes, and I had no worries of whether or not my bike would be stolen. It opened up a bunch of possibilities for me. The dumping and chaos is certainly a problem but I'm confident those details can be solved if city governments are willing to play ball. I've heard in China a lot of the dumping is by city employees who need to fix something but bikes are in the way, so they toss them into piles—but that kind of thing seems like a logistical detail, not an inherent aspect of the system.