June 14, 2018

More Mobi; More Affordable Mobi

Making Mobi, Vancouver’s bike share provider, bigger and more affordable to more people is a great idea.

Many thanks to Vancity, City of Vancouver and Mobi by Shaw Go for the Vancity Community Pass, announced June 14 as a pilot project.

You can get a Community Pass membership HERE, and other locations too (shown on the web site).

For only $20, you can purchase a 365 Day Pass Plus membership with unlimited 60 minute rides. Each additional 30 mins +$3.

You may qualify for this pass if you have a
* Leisure Access Pass
* Red Compass Card
* Third party referral from a Community Partner

Now that the eastward expansion is well underway, Mobi members have more destinations they can reach with a ride. A big win for everyone.

And just for more Mobi fun, here’s @VanBikeShareBot, bringing you the latest Mobi stats every day, courtesy of @MikeJarrett_, who notes the numbers are approximate and very unofficial. Still a hoot, though.

With any luck, the Mobi you choose might be one of the Art Bikes, like this one from Priscilla Yu, whose Granville Island mural was featured on Price Tags a little while ago.

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Comments

  1. Aren’t the usage numbers for Mobi quite low? 1906/1472 = 1.3 rides per bike per day. Some systems are running 6-10 trips per day.

    1. Post
      Author

      Hi Richard: you are right. Larger systems (like NYC) do have larger ride-per-day results. For example, in NYC: January 2018, 2.54 rides-per-bike, 9140 bikes, 752 stations. June 2017, 6.97 rides-per-bike, 8503 bikes, 608 stations. May 2017, 5.36 rides per bike. Data here: https://www.citibikenyc.com/system-data/operating-reports

      For Mobi in May 2018, just to quibble a bit, Mr. Jarrett’s numbers show a rough average of around 2900 rides per day and 1470 bikes for a ride-per-bike at ~2.0. This is roughly 37% of the NYC amount for May 2017.

      It’s hard to account exactly for the difference, except that NYC and it’s system are both much bigger, so that number of bikeable trips and potential destinations is much higher, and demand is higher.

  2. Thanks for featuring my bot Ken!

    For anyone interested I also update the same plots hourly on my website (https://data.mikejarrett.ca/mobi/), and I’ll be adding more information there as time permits. Follow the bot for updates!

    I’ve heard from Mobi that while my numbers aren’t exactly what they see internally, they’re pretty close. They also track quite well with Jens’ numbers on his site (https://doodles.mountainmath.ca/blog/2016/08/24/mobi-running-stats/).

    I don’t think CitiBike is a fair comparison given the population density in NYC. The whole of Manhattan is 3x as dense as the West End, and even the outskirts of CitiBike’s service area are as or more dense than the densest parts of Vancouver. Meanwhile the edges of Mobi’s service area are in single family neighbourhoods. At this summer’s peak I expect about ~4500 trips per day which would be ~3 trips per bike (last summer’s peak was around 3900). I don’t know if that’s enough for it to be sustainable, but I hope so! There’s still some room for station expansion but not a tonne given Vancouver’s population density.

    1. Post
      Author

      Hi Mike: you are welcome. Another issue confounding bike-share comparisons is Vancouver’s mandatory helmet law. Few other places in the world have one, and it seems clear that it reduces ridership. But who knows how much.

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