4 ms·

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 d

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.

hndamien 9y ago
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.
- ShadowFaxSam 9y ago
  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.
bbarn 9y ago
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.
Someone 9y ago
”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)

hndamien 9y ago

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.

ShadowFaxSam 9y ago
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.

bbarn 9y ago

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.

Someone 9y ago

”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)