From a standing start at zero bikes and zero stations a year ago on July 20, Vancouver’s Shaw and Vancity-sponsored bike share system has become just another get-me-around choice that you can make. And people are using it a lot.
- 400,000+: total rides since July 20 (where a bike was taken from one station and returned to another), with an average of 2,500-3,000 trips per day
- 3,915 trips: Busiest day (July 1, 2017)
- 72,602 trips: Busiest month (June 2017)
- 1.14+ million km to date
- 19 minutes: Average trip duration
- ~3km: Average trip distance
For me, the telling bike-share operational statistic is “average number of rides per bike per day“. Since the number of bikes has been growing steadily to around 1,200 today, from zero a year ago, I can’t do useful math without a whole lot more fine-grain detail.
However, we do know that on the peak day (July 1), the rides per bike was around 3.3. This is OK, if not spectacular. My guess is that the big ride-per-bike-per-day numbers occur in big mature systems with broad geographical spread. Vancouver’s Mobi is new, comparatively small and operates in a limited size area.
It’s also worth noting, for a moderately complex system startup like this, that operational glitches have been small. What I tell people is this: “It just works“.
“It just works“.
That has been exactly my experience. I joined originally as a founding member, because of a personal belief in the concept. Didn’t know how much I would use it. After a year, I have used it regularly, if not every day or every week. We have six bikes at home for two of us, but for one way trips, MOBI just works. We just renewed for another year. I don’t consider it a cycling expense, it is in the same category as compass card loading or fuel. Because it just works.
I joined because I wanted to support them in their first year and also didn’t think I would use it much, but have found I use it more than my own two bikes. I now use Mobi for cycling to work, as I have two docks near home and two near work. As my commute is short, it makes more sense to put the wear and tear on somebody else’s bikes (especially wet weather) than my own. It also works great for shopping, as I drop a bike off in one location and pick one up in another.
The only drawbacks are that the seat posts are just a bit too short for me, although they seem to have longer ones now on a few bikes and I wish the app was GPS enabled, so I can easily find the nearest docks to where I am.
I was skeptical at first and saw it as a waste of public $s. However I have used it now many times, became a founding member for $99 and it works surprisingly well. The bike is very robust albeit the saddle too primitive for a ride more than 1h, but I guess that is by design as it is meant for 1/2 h or less short rides. All I can wish is that they expanded along the beaches to Spanish Banks and to UBC, along the Arbutus Greenway and even to W-Van Ambleside and N-Van Lonsdale and of course, Stanley Park.
They also ought to add an e-bike option, for a higher fee. I bet even more folks would use it.
Yes it just works, but we can do better.
Are the financial figures available somewhere?
Vancouver Bike Share Inc is a private company, so no, at least in terms of their internal finances.
City of Vancouver provided $5m over 5 years to start the program up. There are impacts to parking revenue, and some fees paid to the City by MOBI as revenue sharing.
Staff report here:
http://council.vancouver.ca/20160223/documents/rr1presentation.pdf