I love the idea, but it's doomed to failure.<p>I live in a city with a bike-sharing system. It's deeply unprofitable and exists only at the sufferance of the city government. There are a number of flaws. Number 1 is that people who ride bikes don't rent them, they own them. For $100 anyone can purchase a bicycle that will last indefinitely and be available 24/7/365. Number 2 is that people vandalize the shit out of bicycles. Seats will be stolen, tires slashed, bicycles thrown in the river, cables cut. You're free to go after this sort of bicycle since it has no owner - no one is going to come storming out of a nearby store and kick your ass. Crackheads will steal a bicycle seat and try to sell it for $5 to get a hit of crack - I have watched them do it. We live in a world where people are routinely electrocuted trying to steal copper from live power wires and blown up stealing gasoline from pipelines. Those bikes might as well have a sign on them saying "steal me". If even ONE of the components can be removed and sold for a few dollars...<p><a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/pariss-pedal-power-sets-free-uncivilized-behaviour/article1186322/" rel="nofollow">http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/pariss-pedal-power...</a><p><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2009/06/26/montreal-missing-bixi-bikes.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2009/06/26/mont...</a><p>Combining high cost of bicycles, ongoing cost to repair/replace/corral wayward bicycles, and low cost of the alternative (owning a bicycle), there is just no chance that this can be a successful business. You will recall people talking about the future of electricity, as being "too cheap to meter". Well, electricity never made it that far, but time on a bicycle did. Bicycle-time is too cheap to meter.<p>(There may be some future for the company selling to cities or other large entities which intend to subsidize all the costs associated, but it can never be successful as a stand-alone business.)
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.<p>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.<p>There's similar systems in many other European countries. I hear great things about a system in France called velib (I think).<p><i>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 <a href="http://www.pedelecforum.de/forum/imgcache/5382.png*" rel="nofollow">http://www.pedelecforum.de/forum/imgcache/5382.png*</a>
How are they going to deal with the fact that demand is not geographically distributed/balanced?<p>E.g. everyone wants to ride towards downtown in the morning, so there are no bikes left elsewhere, and there isn't enough space downtown to hold all the bikes. And only 2/3 of the morning people want to ride back in the evening, because they're doing other things in the evening.<p>IIRC, some European cities have whole trucks that carry bikes between neighborhoods throughout the day to solve this problem. But that only works if you have big concentrated bike-parking stations. You can't do this if bikes are parked all over the place on the street.<p>It would be really interesting if this service would pay <i>you</i> to ride bikes in the opposite direction of demand. But I can't imagine that would be economical. There just aren't enough people to bike from downtown to the suburbs in the morning, plus you're going to have to pay for them all to get back downtown afterwards!
Interesting. I'm in Montreal, the birthplace of Bixi, which runs the London bike share program, and the upcoming NYC program as well as many others. Works fairly well, but apart from the cost the docking stations cost the city parking revenue.<p>One major administrative cost is moving bikes around. People tend to take them downtown during the day, and out of the town at night. Even if you don't need docks, you still have to move bikes.
Yes, the cost of installing a Bixi-like system is fairly expensive.<p>However, when you're talking about transportation systems, Bikesharing is an absolute steal. Repaving a city street costs $338,000 per mile. A city bus costs anywhere from $500-750,000. Subway cars and commuter railcars run in the range of $2 million <i>each</i>.<p>A 15-dock bikesharing station plus 8 bikes costs as much as a Lexus.
<a href="http://www.capitalbikeshare.com/assets/pdf/cabi_station_sponsorship_flyer.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.capitalbikeshare.com/assets/pdf/cabi_station_spon...</a><p>Washington, DC built its entire bikesharing system for somewhere between $6 and $10 million. That's way less than the cost of a single 8-car Metro train.<p>If we're talking about a system for a large city, the infrastructure costs are low enough as to be irrelevant. If the system can cover its operating costs (which DC's does, even at a surprisingly-high $1,860/bike/year cost), it's basically a slam-dunk.<p>The bigger challenge will come from figuring out how to scale the system out into the suburbs.<p>The problems associated with a decentralized system such as ViaCycle (difficult to attract causal users/tourists, significantly more prone to theft, much more difficult to redistribute, similar maintenance costs, more expensive bikes) don't seem to compensate for the reduced capital costs.
Clearly, the time is almost right for my 'next wave' collaborative consumption startups:<p><i>UnterCab</i>: the Uber for pedicabs and piggyback-rides<p><i>SmallBearings</i>: the RelayRides for rollerskates & skateboards<p><i>Hoparound</i>: that seldom-used pogostick doesn't have to be gathering dust anymore
I love bikes. I love the idea. I've loved living in Paris where a similar system was in place (Vélib').<p>However I think this is a textbook example of the shortcomings of capitalism: while it is great for everyone to live in a city where you can use such a bike, there is no way in hell this will pay for itself.<p>JCDecaux operates the Vélib' system and was estimated to get the equivalent of 2000 euros per bike per year in advertising concessions from Paris' municipality [1] and still not to make a profit.<p>As pointed out by others there are very high running costs and I believe the only viable way to pay for this is through taxes. I also believe taxes are the only just way to pay for it, because everyone benefits from living in a city with more bikes and less cars not only the users.<p>Again, I'd love to be proven wrong and see SF become a greener city through this, but I'm a bit skeptical.<p>[1] in French <a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vélib%27#Viabilit.C3.A9" rel="nofollow">http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vélib%27#Viabilit.C3.A9</a>
This is pretty common in Europe, and as mentioned elsewhere here, somewhat doomed. I couldn't find anything in the linked article explaining how the founders hope to improve on those programs.<p>In particular, I'm curious to see how they plan to avoid the "Velib Extreme" phenomenon:<p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7881079.stm" rel="nofollow">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7881079.stm</a><p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afE44cHNkEg" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afE44cHNkEg</a>
Concerning the design of the bikes, I think there is still room for improvement. The designers can look at the design of the Public Transportation Bike ("OV-Fiets") in the Netherlands[1] which was a major success in a country where there already were more bikes than people before it's introduction.<p>For a bike that is available 24 you would want a bicycle lamp on the front with a dynamo instead of just reflectors. This is a safety concern because reflectors have proven to be unreliable to signal other road users.<p>The bike doesn't have any mudguards but I suspect the weather in SF allows that :).<p>The carrier on the back wheel doesn't look that sturdy and there is a large gap in the middle. A front rack to place heavier cargo on could be a benefit.<p>What about bright colors so the bike stands out?<p>[1]<a href="http://www.ov-fiets.nl/binaries/content/gallery/OV-fiets/nieuwsbrieven/zakelijk/vrouwopfiets_270_211px.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.ov-fiets.nl/binaries/content/gallery/OV-fiets/nie...</a>
Bike-for-hire systems are like public transport: hard to run at a profit, but useful for a city to have. Most systems I know (Velib in Paris, Callabike in Munich) are very popular, but effectively run and subsidized by the government.<p>ViaCycle does not plant to operate the bikeshare, but providing the bike infrastructure for the operator. Which is a smart move - because a) being the operator is unprofitable and b) operators probably dont want to deal with the bike tech.<p>I would love to see a standardized, mass-produced bike intended for rent-a-bike services. It's really a different kind of bike - you need excellent protection against vandalism and theft more than sportiness or low weight. Also, each system currently has its own GPS/Phone tracking and hire system. If a company liek ViaCycle provides a cheaper, standardized system, it would probably lower the cost of runing a bike-for-hire system quite a bit.
I'm wondering what happens when someone gets hit by a car and complains that the bike didn't include a helmet.<p>Don't get me wrong. I love the idea in every way, shape, and form - but I have serious questions about the legal safety issues.
Puget Sound Bike Share ( <a href="http://pugetsoundbikeshare.org/" rel="nofollow">http://pugetsoundbikeshare.org/</a> ) is in the early planning stages of getting something similar set up in Seattle.
In the past I've used the government funded hire schemes in London and Dublin extensively and have had good experiences with them. I know how much they cost, so I'm happy to see an alternative.<p>The only issue I see with this is that it looks particularly easy to remove their locking system. It uses a chain lock, so what is to stop me from "locking" it without putting the chain through the wheel? From there is looks easy to remove their hardware with a spanner as it seems to just be attached to the pannier rack mounting points.
Yo, ViaCycle team: stop what you're doing right now and get an email signup form deployed to your homepage ASAP.<p>I saw the headline, read the article, got excited, landed on the homepage, looked for San Francisco on the list of programs... then left the site, disappointed. You won't get a lot of opportunities to capture customers like the one you just got (and lost) with me.<p>Use mailchimp or something similar and you can fill this deficiency in a few minutes.
"In addition, there is also an upfront cost of about $1,000 to $1,500 for every bike."<p>A recent article from the Economist says London's bikes cost
average price is £14,460/bike each, subsidised by government and advertising. Companies like ViaCycle will hopefully drop the price of these schemes.
<a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21557527" rel="nofollow">http://www.economist.com/node/21557527</a>
Seems very similar to SoBi's offering. SoBi has the advantage of built-in vandalism detection, welded on GPS tracker (it looks like ViaCycle's is bolted on), a sealed shaft-driven drivetrain, and a more durable frame geometry.<p><a href="http://socialbicycles.com/" rel="nofollow">http://socialbicycles.com/</a><p>Exciting times. It looks like the next generation of bike sharing systems is arriving.
About time. In the US, we seriously need more emphasis on bikes and encouraging people to use them for shorter commutes. We either have to drive or walk (mostly). I once met a european lady (from Amsterdam I think) who would not stop talking about how behind the US in terms of bike culture, hardly any bike lanes on roads etc.
Good luck<p>We have this type of system( Bixi) in Toronto. When I first heard of it I kind-of sneered at it. I wasn't sure who would actually use this system.<p>But it's pretty popular. Not sure if it makes any money though.
There's a company doing this peer-to-peer (like Getaround, but for bikes) called Spinlister. <a href="https://www.spinlister.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.spinlister.com/</a>
This reminds me some of WeBike: <a href="http://webikedoyou.com/" rel="nofollow">http://webikedoyou.com/</a><p>Regardless, glad to see some fellow Yellow Jackets doing well! Good luck guys!