7 ms·

Thefts puncture Paris bike scheme

27 points by nickb 18y ago

jacquesm 18y ago
One more piece of evidence that it only takes a very small percentage of jerks to screw it up for the rest of us... The same goes for the internet, nowadays if you design anything at all that has an end-user component you'll spend at least as much time at making it jerk-proof and doing all kinds of abuse analysis as you spend on doing features.
- jackowayed 18y ago
  yeah, it sucks. Like I think Twitter says they have <30 people, and 2 of them are dedicated just to handling spam accounts. That's ridiculous. Think of the features it could have if those 2 extra people were actually getting stuff done.
- gravitycop 18y ago
  nowadays if you design anything at all that has an end-user component you'll spend at least as much time at making it jerk-proof and doing all kinds of abuse analysis http://www.google.com/search?q=%22always+blames+his+tools%22 http://www.google.com/search?q=%22always+blames+his+tools%22 Echoes of Kozmo: http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/14/technology/kozmo_redux http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/14/technology/kozmo_redux No more 50-cent deliveries [...] Customers of Kozmo.com who fondly remember getting single pints of ice cream delivered on a whim won't get off that easy this time. MaxDelivery has a $10 minimum order, and there's a $4.95 delivery charge for orders under $50. Siragusa said this is to keep customers from abusing the system, as they did with Kozmo, and he says MaxDelivery's average order size is much different than Kozmo's. "Someone ordered a pack of Mentos. Then two hours later they'd order a pint of ice cream," said Siragusa. "People did this because there was no penalty. Kozmo had a number of orders that were unprofitable." Kozmo's founders designed its system to reward customers for making frequent low-value orders. When the customer base responded in a way that should have been predicted by the Kozmo founders, instead of recognizing and fixing their error, those founders instead called it "abuse".
  - RiderOfGiraffes 18y ago
    I'm perplexed by your implied comment that having to spend time making your product jerk-proof and performing abuse analysis is only done by poor workmen. It seems to me that work must be done to create value, and work must be done to make the system idiot proof (despite the continuing ingenuity of idiots), and this is true regardless of the talent and abilities of those producing the service or product.
    - gravitycop 18y ago
      I'm perplexed Work (value creation) can be more or less efficient. As stated, an inefficient workman blames his tools, instead of the way he is going about his work. In this case, and often in other cases, the customer base forms part of the toolset. The workman is saying that his tools are not doing what they are supposed to be doing, and that it is their fault. Here is more on this phenomenon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control Internals tend to attribute outcomes of events to their own control. Externals attribute outcomes of events to external circumstances. In the present case, the customer base would be seen as uncontrollable (only susceptible to external control) by the inefficient workman, and controllable (susceptible to internal control) by the efficient workman. work must be done to create value [...] regardless of [...] talent and abilities Yes. But do you mean, as Marxists contend, that variance in ability plays little or no role in variance in the efficiency of the work?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#Marx.27s_contribution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#Marx.27s_...
      - jacquesm 18y ago
        I can't figure out if you're just a very clever troll or someone that has something to contribute, if the former, then congratulations, well played but it does not really help the conversation, if the latter then maybe you should try to make your point in smaller steps so that lesser minds like mine can make sense of what you are trying to communicate.
      - RiderOfGiraffes 18y ago
- sounddust 18y ago
  True, but I think the bike theft issue is a much more easily solved problem than keeping jerks off the internet. If they could just cut the thefts in half, they'd be making a profit again. That could likely be accomplished with a minimal amount of clever thinking regarding security.
jackowayed 18y ago
They should figure out a way where you rent them with a credit card, and if you don't return it and scan your credit card getting credit for returning it, they charge you to replace it. They could still get damaged and returned as such, but at least they couldn't get completely stolen, which is the most valuable thing for criminals to do since that actually gets them money.
- enqk 18y ago
  Here's the thing I don't understand. You cannot rent the bike unless you use a debit card (credit cards are very rare in france) or a monthly/yearly metro subscription. So they actually must know who rented the bike when it disappeared.
  - jackowayed 18y ago
    oh, that's weird. You'd think they'd just charge them for it then. Also, >credit cards are very rare in france You mean you guys don't generally allow yourselves to get deep into debt at absurd interest rates? I can't imagine living in a country like that! Next you're going to tell me that when you have
    - cedsav 18y ago
      Bank ('debit') cards in France kinda work like US credit cards. The bank will happily let your account balance go negative and then charge you fees+high interest rate. I've been in the US 7 years and I haven't quite yet understood why credit cards companies and banks are separate entities. (regulation?)
      - jackowayed 18y ago
        If I had to guess, I'd say it's probably just because that's how it always has been. Bank accounts where you put your money and loans have always been separate. So when credit cards came around, it probably wasn't an existing bank saying "maybe we'll let people go negative and then charge them huge interest"; it was a separate entity offering people what essentially is a way to be conveniently loaned money. They probably just never integrated into 1 entity. There may be regulation as well, but none that I know.
RiderOfGiraffes 18y ago
This has similarities with the Prisoners' Dilemma: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma Although we'd all be better off if we all cooperated, there will always be those who take their personal advantage and screw everyone else. It's too easy to label them as sociopaths, and in some sense they are, but game theory ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory ) predicts this behaviour. It sucks, but you won't change it. This also has consequences for social networks, such as Hacker News. It's OK when everyone shares a common purpose and common interests, but get enough newbies and the culture won't propagate. The various car share schemes that require significant buy-in and have penalties for non-compliance and that shifts the game theory into a configuration that works. Maybe something similar will eventually be required for social networks too.
- gcheong 18y ago
  I was thinking that this fits more along the lines of tragedy of the commons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
  - ovi256 18y ago
    Isn't Tragedy of the commons a variant of the prisoner's dilemma ? It has a high number of prisoners, but the payoff matrix is the same. Similar to an arms race too.
  - RiderOfGiraffes 18y ago
    Sorry, I should've been clearer. Yes, this is what's commonly known as the tragedy of the commons, but that is more-or-less a (large) multiple-player version of the Prisoners' Dilemma, which is easier to analyse and harder to condemn. There are differences, but the underlying principle is similar enough. Too often these days people simply say "Tragedy of the Commons", wring their hands, and say that people are idiots. I was trying to make it clearer that game theory really does predict this behavior, that it's not irrational, that it is to be expected, and you have to change the rules to change the behavior. Exactly how to change the rules is left as an exercise for the interested reader.
AlfaWolph 18y ago
Would something so simple as making a deposit that is released upon return not help?
ionfish 18y ago
The other side of the story: http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/02/12/reports-of-velibs-demise-greatly-exaggerated/ http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/02/12/reports-of-velibs-demi...
- zupatol 18y ago
  To sum it up: the bike system is operated by an advertiser, who is now using negative PR to strenghten his position in negociations with the city of Paris. Why on earth is an advertiser operating bikes? The city of Paris lets him use its outdoor displays for free. It seems the only advantage for the mayor is that he can claim the bike system works at no cost. This is probably the reason why he lets the advertiser keep secret the amount of his revenues from the displays. That barely honest financing scheme looks like the main problem.
  - wingo 18y ago
    Agreed. Here in Barcelona we have the ignomious fate of Bicing (bicing.com) being run by /ClearChannel/, of all organizations. Jeez.
    - sounddust 18y ago
      The company that runs the one in Paris is JCDecaux, basically the ClearChannel of Europe. They fought and won against CC to build/implement the system in Paris.
  - sounddust 18y ago
    Because it works (despite the advertiser's whining), and provides a service that otherwise wouldn't exist. It's funny; I've lived in both Paris and Seattle, two cities which have the expensive and difficult-to-maintain electronic public toilets which automatically clean themselves after every use. The ones in Paris are run by JCDecaux (same company who is doing the bike rentals), and although they are dreadful to use, they work (and have worked) for years. In Seattle, the city was approached by JCDecaux to build public toilets in exchange for putting advertising near them, but were refused. Seattle decided instead to use millions of taxpayer dollars to form their own ad-free version. The toilets rarely worked (and in any case were constantly occupied by crackheads). 2 or 3 years later, the city cut their losses and unsuccessfully tried to sell the toilets on eBay.
natrius 18y ago
JCDecaux's losses from theft are explicitly limited by their contract with Paris, so their sudden change of heart is probably more of a PR move to aid in contract negotiations than a true sign of the viability of bike sharing schemes. http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/02/12/reports-of-velibs-demise-greatly-exaggerated/ http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/02/12/reports-of-velibs-demi... Maybe one day, the peninsula will have a quality bike sharing network to help solve Caltrain's last mile problem. One day...
sam_in_nyc 18y ago
Why are they calling this bike rental company a "scheme"?
- gravitycop 18y ago
  The company is not what is being called a scheme. What the company was being employed by the city of Paris to execute is being called a scheme: Championed by Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, the bikes were part of an attempt to "green" the capital. [...] The original contract gave the advertising company a 10-year licence to exploit 1,600 city-wide billboards in return for running the scheme [...] The scheme was modelled on one in Lyon [...] It is also being copied overseas with London, San Francisco and Singapore all intending to set up similar schemes.
jgrahamc 18y ago
Toulouse has a similar scheme... it's not the bikes that seemed to get stolen, it's the shopping baskets on the front that either get unscrewed or simply cut off.

27 points by nickb 18y ago

One more piece of evidence that it only takes a very small percentage of jerks to screw it up for the rest of us... The same goes for the internet, nowadays if you design anything at all that has an end-user component you'll spend at least as much time at making it jerk-proof and doing all kinds of abuse analysis as you spend on doing features.

jackowayed 18y ago
yeah, it sucks. Like I think Twitter says they have <30 people, and 2 of them are dedicated just to handling spam accounts. That's ridiculous. Think of the features it could have if those 2 extra people were actually getting stuff done.
gravitycop 18y ago
nowadays if you design anything at all that has an end-user component you'll spend at least as much time at making it jerk-proof and doing all kinds of abuse analysis http://www.google.com/search?q=%22always+blames+his+tools%22 http://www.google.com/search?q=%22always+blames+his+tools%22 Echoes of Kozmo: http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/14/technology/kozmo_redux http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/14/technology/kozmo_redux No more 50-cent deliveries [...] Customers of Kozmo.com who fondly remember getting single pints of ice cream delivered on a whim won't get off that easy this time. MaxDelivery has a $10 minimum order, and there's a $4.95 delivery charge for orders under $50. Siragusa said this is to keep customers from abusing the system, as they did with Kozmo, and he says MaxDelivery's average order size is much different than Kozmo's. "Someone ordered a pack of Mentos. Then two hours later they'd order a pint of ice cream," said Siragusa. "People did this because there was no penalty. Kozmo had a number of orders that were unprofitable." Kozmo's founders designed its system to reward customers for making frequent low-value orders. When the customer base responded in a way that should have been predicted by the Kozmo founders, instead of recognizing and fixing their error, those founders instead called it "abuse".
- RiderOfGiraffes 18y ago
  I'm perplexed by your implied comment that having to spend time making your product jerk-proof and performing abuse analysis is only done by poor workmen. It seems to me that work must be done to create value, and work must be done to make the system idiot proof (despite the continuing ingenuity of idiots), and this is true regardless of the talent and abilities of those producing the service or product.
  - gravitycop 18y ago
    I'm perplexed Work (value creation) can be more or less efficient. As stated, an inefficient workman blames his tools, instead of the way he is going about his work. In this case, and often in other cases, the customer base forms part of the toolset. The workman is saying that his tools are not doing what they are supposed to be doing, and that it is their fault. Here is more on this phenomenon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control Internals tend to attribute outcomes of events to their own control. Externals attribute outcomes of events to external circumstances. In the present case, the customer base would be seen as uncontrollable (only susceptible to external control) by the inefficient workman, and controllable (susceptible to internal control) by the efficient workman. work must be done to create value [...] regardless of [...] talent and abilities Yes. But do you mean, as Marxists contend, that variance in ability plays little or no role in variance in the efficiency of the work?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#Marx.27s_contribution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value#Marx.27s_...
    - jacquesm 18y ago
      I can't figure out if you're just a very clever troll or someone that has something to contribute, if the former, then congratulations, well played but it does not really help the conversation, if the latter then maybe you should try to make your point in smaller steps so that lesser minds like mine can make sense of what you are trying to communicate.
    - RiderOfGiraffes 18y ago
sounddust 18y ago
True, but I think the bike theft issue is a much more easily solved problem than keeping jerks off the internet. If they could just cut the thefts in half, they'd be making a profit again. That could likely be accomplished with a minimal amount of clever thinking regarding security.

jackowayed 18y ago

They should figure out a way where you rent them with a credit card, and if you don't return it and scan your credit card getting credit for returning it, they charge you to replace it. They could still get damaged and returned as such, but at least they couldn't get completely stolen, which is the most valuable thing for criminals to do since that actually gets them money.

enqk 18y ago
Here's the thing I don't understand. You cannot rent the bike unless you use a debit card (credit cards are very rare in france) or a monthly/yearly metro subscription. So they actually must know who rented the bike when it disappeared.
- jackowayed 18y ago
  oh, that's weird. You'd think they'd just charge them for it then. Also, >credit cards are very rare in france You mean you guys don't generally allow yourselves to get deep into debt at absurd interest rates? I can't imagine living in a country like that! Next you're going to tell me that when you have
  - cedsav 18y ago
    Bank ('debit') cards in France kinda work like US credit cards. The bank will happily let your account balance go negative and then charge you fees+high interest rate. I've been in the US 7 years and I haven't quite yet understood why credit cards companies and banks are separate entities. (regulation?)
    - jackowayed 18y ago
      If I had to guess, I'd say it's probably just because that's how it always has been. Bank accounts where you put your money and loans have always been separate. So when credit cards came around, it probably wasn't an existing bank saying "maybe we'll let people go negative and then charge them huge interest"; it was a separate entity offering people what essentially is a way to be conveniently loaned money. They probably just never integrated into 1 entity. There may be regulation as well, but none that I know.

RiderOfGiraffes 18y ago

This has similarities with the Prisoners' Dilemma: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma Although we'd all be better off if we all cooperated, there will always be those who take their personal advantage and screw everyone else. It's too easy to label them as sociopaths, and in some sense they are, but game theory ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory ) predicts this behaviour. It sucks, but you won't change it. This also has consequences for social networks, such as Hacker News. It's OK when everyone shares a common purpose and common interests, but get enough newbies and the culture won't propagate. The various car share schemes that require significant buy-in and have penalties for non-compliance and that shifts the game theory into a configuration that works. Maybe something similar will eventually be required for social networks too.

gcheong 18y ago
I was thinking that this fits more along the lines of tragedy of the commons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
- ovi256 18y ago
  Isn't Tragedy of the commons a variant of the prisoner's dilemma ? It has a high number of prisoners, but the payoff matrix is the same. Similar to an arms race too.
- RiderOfGiraffes 18y ago
  Sorry, I should've been clearer. Yes, this is what's commonly known as the tragedy of the commons, but that is more-or-less a (large) multiple-player version of the Prisoners' Dilemma, which is easier to analyse and harder to condemn. There are differences, but the underlying principle is similar enough. Too often these days people simply say "Tragedy of the Commons", wring their hands, and say that people are idiots. I was trying to make it clearer that game theory really does predict this behavior, that it's not irrational, that it is to be expected, and you have to change the rules to change the behavior. Exactly how to change the rules is left as an exercise for the interested reader.

AlfaWolph 18y ago

Would something so simple as making a deposit that is released upon return not help?

ionfish 18y ago

The other side of the story: http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/02/12/reports-of-velibs-demise-greatly-exaggerated/ http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/02/12/reports-of-velibs-demi...

zupatol 18y ago
To sum it up: the bike system is operated by an advertiser, who is now using negative PR to strenghten his position in negociations with the city of Paris. Why on earth is an advertiser operating bikes? The city of Paris lets him use its outdoor displays for free. It seems the only advantage for the mayor is that he can claim the bike system works at no cost. This is probably the reason why he lets the advertiser keep secret the amount of his revenues from the displays. That barely honest financing scheme looks like the main problem.
- wingo 18y ago
  Agreed. Here in Barcelona we have the ignomious fate of Bicing (bicing.com) being run by /ClearChannel/, of all organizations. Jeez.
  - sounddust 18y ago
    The company that runs the one in Paris is JCDecaux, basically the ClearChannel of Europe. They fought and won against CC to build/implement the system in Paris.
- sounddust 18y ago
  Because it works (despite the advertiser's whining), and provides a service that otherwise wouldn't exist. It's funny; I've lived in both Paris and Seattle, two cities which have the expensive and difficult-to-maintain electronic public toilets which automatically clean themselves after every use. The ones in Paris are run by JCDecaux (same company who is doing the bike rentals), and although they are dreadful to use, they work (and have worked) for years. In Seattle, the city was approached by JCDecaux to build public toilets in exchange for putting advertising near them, but were refused. Seattle decided instead to use millions of taxpayer dollars to form their own ad-free version. The toilets rarely worked (and in any case were constantly occupied by crackheads). 2 or 3 years later, the city cut their losses and unsuccessfully tried to sell the toilets on eBay.

natrius 18y ago

JCDecaux's losses from theft are explicitly limited by their contract with Paris, so their sudden change of heart is probably more of a PR move to aid in contract negotiations than a true sign of the viability of bike sharing schemes. http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/02/12/reports-of-velibs-demise-greatly-exaggerated/ http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/02/12/reports-of-velibs-demi... Maybe one day, the peninsula will have a quality bike sharing network to help solve Caltrain's last mile problem. One day...

sam_in_nyc 18y ago

Why are they calling this bike rental company a "scheme"?

gravitycop 18y ago
The company is not what is being called a scheme. What the company was being employed by the city of Paris to execute is being called a scheme: Championed by Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, the bikes were part of an attempt to "green" the capital. [...] The original contract gave the advertising company a 10-year licence to exploit 1,600 city-wide billboards in return for running the scheme [...] The scheme was modelled on one in Lyon [...] It is also being copied overseas with London, San Francisco and Singapore all intending to set up similar schemes.

jgrahamc 18y ago

Toulouse has a similar scheme... it's not the bikes that seemed to get stolen, it's the shopping baskets on the front that either get unscrewed or simply cut off.