Global 3rd Generation Bike-sharing Services
This year has been another fantastic year for bike-sharing around the world. In my most unscientific calculation I have counted there to be about 238 bike-sharing services around the world, up from about 160 last year, for a 49% increase. On top of this, there are another 53 services that are in planning stages and may come online soon.
Many notable things happened this year in the field that have pushed the boundaries of bike-sharing and transit. And it’s great timing too as global climate change doesn’t seem to want to let the world catch up. These improvements include:
Vcub(e) (Bordeaux, France) pushed the edges of 3rd generation bike-sharing by integrating with the region’s other transit systems such that the same RFID card could be used on any transit system.
Mexico City repealed its bike helmet law before the launch of Ecobici, however, Melbourne did not, which has limited the public’s uptake. Although, Melbourne Bike Share is experimenting with helmet vending machines and helmet sales at convenience stores for which we wish them good luck.
India and Iran got into the bike-sharing game with Bike House and FreMo, respectively, operating modified 2nd generation services. Good for them. This proves there’s no one right answer for each challenge.
Dublinbikes (Dublin, Ireland) is a little service that became so widely used with a whopping 10 trips per bike per day and 100 members per bike. “By comparison Paris has around 8 per bike and Washington, DC around 5 subscribers per bike.”
Barclays Cycle Hire (London, England) launched earlier this year with great fanfare as Barclays provided £25 million to sponsor the service, lending its name and covering the city with 6,000 blue bikes. Their safety and usage videos are to date the best I’ve seen yet. Maybe their next video will have Prince William and Kate narrating.
Velib’ (Paris, France) turned 3 years old this year and hit its 80,000,000th trip. I remember the good old days when it had hit its 1,000,000th trip. Ahhh, memories.
Capital Bikeshare - © Paul De Maio
The first large-scale bike-sharing services in the U.S. with the launches of Nice Ride Minnesota (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA), Denver B-cycle (Denver, Colorado, USA), and Capital Bikeshare (Washington, D.C. and Arlington, Virginia, USA). Each trying to out-do the other, the each launched a couple of months from each other with more bikes and stations.
As you can see, it’s been quite a busy year in the bike-sharing world. Here at The Bike-sharing Blog we had about 80,000 visitors this year and The Bike-sharing World Map has had over 760,000 views since its inception over three years ago. At nearly 300 listings of services which are either running or on their way, the Bike-sharing World Map has gotten a little wieldy as we’re pushing the edges of what a Google Map can do.
Paul DeMaio, MetroBike, LLC
We at MetroBike, LLC have had a good year ourselves with the work we’ve accomplished and the many projects were working on. The movement to get people riding is just beginning to roll. There’s still so much to do to change the path the world has been heading down. Bike-sharing, along with many other innovative, green ideas, will be the change the world must see to improve ourselves.
The Bike-sharing Blog co-authors, Russell Meddin of Bike Share Philadelphia and I, wish you a happy and healthy 2011 with lots of bike-sharing. We look forward to the upcoming year and all the exciting things we have yet to learn, experience, and share on The Bike-sharing Blog. We’ll keep you posted, so you keep us posted too about what’s going on in your part of the world.
Best wishes,
http://bike-sharing.blogspot.com/2010/12/2010-year-end-wrap-up.html
3 Comments
Why do bike sharing promoters always try to baffle people with “huge” numbers ?
Let’s look at Paris. The city has an urban population of over 10 million people. In three years they’ve made 80 million trips by Velib. That works out on average as a whopping 2.7 trips per person per year. i.e. they ride to a cafe and back home again once, counting as two trips, and there’s not even a whole trip each left over.
By comparison, the whole of the country of the Netherlands has a population of 16 million people. During the working day, they make over 1 million trips per hour by bike.
80 million trips take not three years, but a bit under six days in the Netherlands.
Bike share is not creating the revolution in cycling which its promoters say it is. There is too much wishful thinking and fanfare, and too little honest reflection, taking a look at what the figures mean. This is utterly ineffective in helping the world to “catch up” against climate change.
Do you have a list of the cities with bike sharing?
Hello Steve,
Please find here the link for The Bike-sharing World Map:
http://tinyurl.com/6ceaoq
All the best,
marko