Managing the Melbourne Bike Share system should be easy – users pick up a bicycle from their local station, go for a ride, and then check it back in at their destination. However in the real world it is more complex, as there needs to be a mix of spare bikes and empty docking bays available at each location.
As times goes on, some stations start to collect bicycles, like this one down at Docklands.
Others stations in busy locations (like Federation Square) see a mix of incoming and outgoing riders.
While stations like this one never see people drop off bikes – riding to the top of the hill is too much work!
The solution to the problem is a fleet of staff to shuffle bicycles around the city.
They visit the docking stations with too many bikes, and load up their ute.
Then ferry them to locations lacking bicycles.
Further reading
Last week Gizmodo ran an article about the science behind reallocating bicycles in bike share systems – inspired by a journal article by Chelsea Wald titled ‘Wheels when you need them‘.
In Montreal (the original location for the Bixi system that Melbourne uses), this is a massive issue. Montreal has a big hill (Mont Real – Mount Royal), and a big bike culture (it’s crazy – they have metered bike parking).
So everyone rides their Bixi down the hill to work, and catches the Metro home. They have big North American style utes with huge tandem trailers – several of them – to deal with the hundreds of extra bikes that end up at the bottom of the hill every day. Popular locations need attendants during peak times to manually handle all the bikes.
Heavy loading on the metro of an evening to get commuters home, and separate vehicles to get the bikes back up the hill for the next morning – sounds like an inefficient operation!
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2011/0921/Montreal-s-public-bike-system-faces-uphill-battle
One would hope the number of riders taking bikes in both directions outnumber those who only ride them down hills, otherwise they’ll never break even on the costs of running the system.
Think of the physical exercise that Montreal residents are getting! Surely riding a bike down a hill is more exercise than sitting in a train?
Though riding a bike downhill doesn’t involve much pedaling.
I heard of one woman who rode from Federation Square to Melbourne Uni to find all bike slots were full, so rode back to RMIT and then caught the tram back.
The limited number of bike stations doesn’t help:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/bike-share-scheme-disappointing-20110531-1fdto.html
Though it shows how annoying a lack of empty bike slots at your destination can be.
Helmets have been another issue. Until recently apparently each 7/11 only had a couple so you had to walk to several to find one, and then pay for it. I see they have them out on display now though.
Walking between shops to find a helmet would be a pain in the arse – though reusing a free helmets somebody else has used isn’t very inviting either:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/free-helmets-in-bid-to-jumpstart-bike-share-plan-20130321-2gh6r.html
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