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In Germany we have a system like this called call-a-bike (it's run by the german railway!). It works surprisingly well. You're allowed to leave the bikes wherev
by jhuckestein 14y ago
In Germany we have a system like this called call-a-bike (it's run by the german railway!). It works surprisingly well. You're allowed to leave the bikes wherever you want and if they are left unused for a while a truck will come and move them back to a central location.
I really like what via cycle has done with the SMS unlocking. Back when I was in Germany, almost three years ago now (!), you had to call a service line to find/unlock a bike. Late at night there were usually wait times and it was especially difficult to manage the entire process if you were a little tipsy.
There's similar systems in many other European countries. I hear great things about a system in France called velib (I think).
Edit: I forgot to mention, the German bikes also have a second seat on the back. I'm not sure from the picture if this is also true for viaCycle but it's definitely one of the best features. Here's a picture http://www.pedelecforum.de/forum/imgcache/5382.png* http://www.pedelecforum.de/forum/imgcache/5382.png*
- koji 14y agoCall a bike in Germany is definitely a great system! viaCycle strives to improve on this by geo-fencing the bicycles when they need to be checked back into the system (and so you are no longer charged for usage). This helps maintain distribution and gives users reliable, structured locations to get bicycles, so they're not just strewn across cities.
- jhuckestein 14y agoYea, and logistical problems like that are what gets me excited about this. In grad school I did research on a on increasing the average vehicle occupancy in cities and we took a lot of inspiration from the bike sharing programs. Have you considered offering dynamic pricing based on the likelihood that the bike will be used in the near future? I.e. riding into the city should be cheaper than riding out of the city in most cases.
- kazevedo 14y agoAbsolutely! Dynamic pricing is something we're really excited about. It's still a young idea, but even large systems like Velib have implemented simple incentives for people who ride against traffic flow. Since our bikes always know where they are, we can be much more proactive about balancing each system. Edit: a few of us did graduate transportation research as well, your work sounds cool. Is it published anywhere?
- jhuckestein 14y agoNope, never got published. Our first project in grad school was writing a report on "The service centric car of 2020" [1] (don't read, it's bad). I spun off a project called "Sustainable urban mobility in the megacities of the future" with a friend and we both landed scholarships to do research in the US and publish a paper on it. Then I got involved with startups and was never heard or seen again in academia (I think I'm technically "on leave" from school) [1] http://www.cdtm.de/events/entrepreneurship-camp/about-cdtm/bookstore/service-centric-car.html http://www.cdtm.de/events/entrepreneurship-camp/about-cdtm/b...
- felix_faber 14y agoI'm writing my master's thesis on exactly that topic. http://control.ee.ethz.ch/index.cgi?page=sada;action=details;id=301 http://control.ee.ethz.ch/index.cgi?page=sada;action=details... a) a heuristic for optimal routing of repositioning trucks based on anticipated (uncertain) future demand. b) dynamic pricing using a model predictive control approach (receding horizon optimization on a model of customer reaction to (price) incentives). Insanely cool stuff. And its working. A paper should come out soon..
- koji 14y agoLet us know when it comes out! We'd love to give it a read.
- syassami 14y agoThe french one is extremely convenient and I recommend it to any traveller passing through france. You need a smart card in order to use the system though.