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I remember living in NYC pre-Uber. If you were trying to hail a cab in a spot with other people also trying to get one, you had to resort to aggressively yellin

I remember living in NYC pre-Uber. If you were trying to hail a cab in a spot with other people also trying to get one, you had to resort to aggressively yelling "Back the F@#$ off, that's my cab!" Then Uber came and that largely went away b/c why fight over a cab when you could call and Uber? Then CitiBike came along. It was amazing that you could just get a bike and ride somewhere. That is, until you were riding it to a commuter bus or train station at evening rush hour. Suddenly, you have 5 mins to catch your train and you see one open slot in the bike return. Another person also sees that spot and you race towards it until you ave to say "Back the F@#$ off, that's my spot!" In other words, if cities want to have these options then should address directional supply and demand issues otherwise people are just going to say "Not worth the hassle"

bombcar 4y ago
The entire value of Uber was the app hailing (in my opinion) - the cab companies could have leaped on that but didn't. Same with the bike rental things like CitiBike - there should be roving vans throughout the city moving and balancing the slots based on usage. They have the data, use it. They could even offer to "fix" problems (e.g., arrive at the train station and there's not a slot available? CitiBike will send a vehicle to get you to your destination within reason).
- idreyn 4y ago
  > there should be roving vans throughout the city moving and balancing the slots based on usage There are, and the system does rely in part on this rebalancing act to be functional. (Also to bring the E-bikes in for charging — sadly the stations won't be able to charge those for some time yet.)
  - alexpotato 4y ago
    To be fair, there are also occasionally staff at the busiest drop off locations who manually accept bikes and then just pile them off to the side.
- asoneth 4y ago
  In addition to the balancing vans, Citi Bike in NYC has a reward system[1] that incentivizes users to take from full stations and dock at empty stations. With enough effort you can earn enough points to more than offset your monthly subscription and more which I did occasionally when I was cross training. [1] https://citibikenyc.com/bike-angels https://citibikenyc.com/bike-angels
  - bombcar 4y ago
    This is the kind of thing that should be encouraged - uhaul used to offer super low rates if you’d return the vehicle to where they wanted it to be.

bombcar 4y ago

The entire value of Uber was the app hailing (in my opinion) - the cab companies could have leaped on that but didn't. Same with the bike rental things like CitiBike - there should be roving vans throughout the city moving and balancing the slots based on usage. They have the data, use it. They could even offer to "fix" problems (e.g., arrive at the train station and there's not a slot available? CitiBike will send a vehicle to get you to your destination within reason).

idreyn 4y ago
> there should be roving vans throughout the city moving and balancing the slots based on usage There are, and the system does rely in part on this rebalancing act to be functional. (Also to bring the E-bikes in for charging — sadly the stations won't be able to charge those for some time yet.)
- alexpotato 4y ago
  To be fair, there are also occasionally staff at the busiest drop off locations who manually accept bikes and then just pile them off to the side.
asoneth 4y ago
In addition to the balancing vans, Citi Bike in NYC has a reward system[1] that incentivizes users to take from full stations and dock at empty stations. With enough effort you can earn enough points to more than offset your monthly subscription and more which I did occasionally when I was cross training. [1] https://citibikenyc.com/bike-angels https://citibikenyc.com/bike-angels
- bombcar 4y ago
  This is the kind of thing that should be encouraged - uhaul used to offer super low rates if you’d return the vehicle to where they wanted it to be.