Toronto Bike Share

[muller877]

I don't buy that the price tag is all accounted for by the docks. How much of that money is in the fact that the bikes are heavy beasts built to last?

Schedule A of the attached has the cost breakdown.

https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2018/pa/bgrd/backgroundfile-112842.pdf

And the dockless bikes in China cost just under $500 as a second reference point

 

[Fred.S]

As someone who lives at Yonge and Eglinton, I would love the opportunity to be able to bike down to Saint Clair, Rosedale and Bloo to try out some restaurants, meet up with friends or for a change of scenery. Even with my current living arrangement, I find that my bikeshare membership has covered its cost and saved me some nightmarish commutes on the TTC.

I don't live at Yonge and Eg, but I'd also love to ride bike share down Yonge from there. Mind you I wouldn't be too enthusiastic about taking it back north. I'm wondering if they'll see lots of bikes going south, but not back up. Maybe need to add a financial incentive to bring bikes back north, like a dollar or two credit, though that doesn't really work with the payment model.

 

[goleafsgo_chris]

Schedule A of the attached has the cost breakdown.

https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2018/pa/bgrd/backgroundfile-112842.pdf

And the dockless bikes in China cost just under $500 as a second reference point

Come on lol. You know that if they cost 500$ in china they will cost significantly more here.

 

[muller877]

Come on lol. You know that if they cost 500$ in china they will cost significantly more here.

Purchase of bike (assuming >1000 purchased) = US$48. Three speed with solid tires, aluminum frame and basket
Purchase of locking mechanism = US$30 (including Bluetooth, SIM card, GPS)
App & management software - included in the above price if >10,000 units in total purchased

Total = C$100

Shipping = C$2 ($800 for a container, assume 500 per container)
Duties = C$30 (assume 30%)
GST = C$13
Assembly = C$30 (2 hours)
build-out of areas to store bikes (paint/stickers on cement) = C$10

Total < C$200

I was being very conservative when I said $500.

And you can go on various websites to confirm the above pricing.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Some really interesting photos of pikes of bikes in the below link.

The Bike-Share Oversupply in China: Huge Piles of Abandoned and Broken Bicycles
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2...iles-of-abandoned-and-broken-bicycles/556268/

This matches what I saw in Shenzhen in February, bikes everywhere, in ditches, in rivers, in hedges, just dumped everywhere.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Bikeshare here in Nuremberg, Germany.

 

[amnesiajune]

Now that the weather is nice out, bike redistribution is turning into a huge problem. I know that Toronto Bike Share does it but they can't seem to keep up, but the area east of Bay and north of Wellesley (where I'm picking up bikes often) is always severely lacking bikes. It seems like people ride them all to work in the morning, and very few people bike into the area during the day/evening (there's not a lot of stuff here besides apartments), so there's never more than one or two bikes at any of the stations (around half will be empty no matter what).

Last Thursday, for example:


If they're going to start expanding farther north, they seriously need to think about how they're going to keep stations refilled. Bike Share bikes aren't great for riding uphill, so without good redistribution the same thing is going to happen up along St Clair West and Yonge & Eglinton.

Whenever I'm in Montreal I notice the difference - no matter where I go I seem to see lots of cars dragging trailers filled with bikes (Toronto uses vans to be fair, so it wouldn't be as visible). That's how they're able to keep, for example, a bike station up at the top of the McGill campus, where nobody's ever dropping off a bike. They don't even run the system year-round, but they make sure that the system works well when it is active.

 

[nephersir7]

Whenever I'm in Montreal I notice the difference - no matter where I go I seem to see lots of cars dragging trailers filled with bikes (Toronto uses vans to be fair, so it wouldn't be as visible). That's how they're able to keep, for example, a bike station up at the top of the McGill campus, where nobody's ever dropping off a bike. They don't even run the system year-round, but they make sure that the system works well when it is active.

Another thing that helps tremendously in Montreal (and NYC) is the "valet" system.

During the morning rush hour, some designated high-demand stations have an attendant emptying the station as it fills and stockpiling the bike overflow next to it for the day. An attendant comes back in the afternoon to refill the station from the pile as it empties. This guarantees availability and avoids the need to haul a large amount of bikes away and then back.

 

[LNahid2000]

Another thing that helps tremendously in Montreal (and NYC) is the "valet" system.

During the morning rush hour, some designated high-demand stations have an attendant emptying the station as it fills and stockpiling the bike overflow next to it for the day. An attendant comes back in the afternoon to refill the station from the pile as it empties. This guarantees availability and avoids the need to haul a large amount of bikes away and then back.

They do this in the financial district in Toronto as well. You'll see bikes stacked up like in the images above at Union Station and at King/Bay.

 

[Admiral Beez]

So far I've only come across one entirely empty dock, but thanks to the app I steered clear. In my Cabbagetown to Union and return run I never have issues.

I'm flying to Amsterdam this weekend for work, so will look at their bikeshare system.

 

[mdrejhon]

Docks provide a bit of predictability; you have a fixed point where bikes can be picked up. I think that predictability outweighs the convenience of dropping it where you want. Especially as we expand out into Scarborough, Etobicoke and North York, where land area and destinations are farther spread out, bikes could be dropped in places that aren't convenient.

SoBi is a hybrid between a dockless and docked system.

All "docks" (green) are dumb bike racks with geofences. Free to return.

All solo bikes (blue) are available standalone bikes that have been locked in a random location like to a parking meter or some non-SoBi bike rack.

All bikes have builtin GPS trackers, and unlike chinese dockless systems, they can be unlocked without a phone since all bikes have a solar cell, screen, and numeric keypad. So they are quite a hybrid. More expensive per bike than the chinese dockless systems, but cheaper than the dock systems.

95% of bikes are at docks because you get charged $1 to end a rental away from a "dock" (simply advertisement-plastered plain bike racks)

Users are rewarded 75 cents to return a bike. Some hard-to-retrieve bikes have a bounty ($5 or $10) to return, such as a bike parked far away like a kilometer outside bikeshare territory. (Users automatically get charged a $20 penalty for that, which they reuse as bounties for other people to retrieve bikes)

Essentially, SoBi is partially crowdsourced bike rebalancing, so it has a lower operational cost per bike.

There is some brainstorming to add an automatic bounty to bikes that flow uphilll (e.g. up escarpment). Especially when the new Keddy Access Trail is built.

 

[Avenue]

I know not everyone here is downtown but multiple times I've seen those dockless orange bikes thrown onto the actual street at Yonge and Dundas - let alone littering sidewalks randomly. The dockless bike concept fails to account for the fact that we live in a big city.

 

[amnesiajune]

I know not everyone here is downtown but multiple times I've seen those dockless orange bikes thrown onto the actual street at Yonge and Dundas - let alone littering sidewalks randomly. The dockless bike concept fails to account for the fact that we live in a big city.

That's a design problem with those systems. Sobi (well-designed) requires you to physically lock the bike to something. With Dropbike you just have to upload a picture of the bike to "prove" that you locked it somewhere.

 

[tripwire]

I may be in the minority but I detest the dockless bike shares. In my trips to China, these bikes are left (locked or not) with very little care to fellow pedestrians. I've witnessed people just dropping the bike in the middle of the sidewalk and just walking off after. And when there's a big event? It becomes a disaster of bikes left everywhere.

The docking system we have is not as convenient, but I don't have enough faith in Torontonians (or humanity in general) to not make dockless bikeshare an absolute mess.

 

[steveintoronto]

Some Western cities do very well with dockless bikes. As @amnesiajune points out, it's all down to the design and business model. Some US cities have studied this intently, and New York is the latest one to adopt it.

NYC to launch dockless bike share pilot this summer
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The program will head to Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island
By Ameena Walker May 24, 2018, 12:45pm EDT

The dockless pilot is a result of a Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI) that was issued by the Department of Transportation last December, seeking the ideas for the “next-generation” of dockless public bike share systems.

Unlike Citi Bike, this bike share program will not require docking stations and will allow users to rent bikes through their mobile devices for around $2 per ride. The pilot program will be required to operate outside of areas that are served by Citi Bike to avoid “duplicating or undermining current bike share service,” says a press release. The city plans to have a total of 200 bikes that offer half-hour rides within the boundaries of the respective programs areas.

Before the pilot is launched, the DOT will head to community board in the neighborhoods set to host the program to present plans and establish boundaries for the proposed pilot areas throughout the month of June. The DOT will also determine which companies will be assigned to operate in the various areas.

“We will start in July on a small scale in each borough outside Manhattan, and we will take what we learn over the next few months to make informed, clear-eyed decisions as to whether New York City’s bike-share future is dockless,” said DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg. “In the meantime, we strongly encourage New Yorkers to get out this summer and explore some great neighborhoods by bike—and of course give us their feedback on the dockless experience.”

The pilot is set to run until September, after which time DOT officials will determine whether the program will be extended or discontinued, based upon its performance.

NYC to launch dockless bike share pilot this summer
Curbed NY-May 24, 2018

This summer, four New York City neighborhoods outside of Manhattan will host dockless bikeshare pilot programs. In a Thursday ...
Dockless Bikes To Roll Out In NYC This Summer
Patch.com-May 24, 2018

Dockless bikes are coming to fill Citi Bike voids
New York Post-May 24, 2018

Dockless bike share pilot to begin in July
Crain's New York Business-May 24, 2018

Dockless Bike Share Coming To Select Outer Borough ...
Gothamist-May 24, 2018

Dockless bike-share program coming to Rockaways, Coney Island ...
Local Source-amNY-May 24, 2018