They have flat rate for dockless.
https://seattle.curbed.com/2017/7/28/16060052/spin-bike-share-monthly-pricing
From: Robbie Webber via Bikies <[email protected]>
To: Scott Morris Rose <[email protected]>
Cc: Bikies <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2017 4:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Bikies] dockless bike share
I understand the appeal of the dockless system for both cities (no major
infrastructure to site in the right of way) and the occasional user (no
membership fees.) But for someone who is planning on using the system on a
regular basis, the per-hour charge can get pricey fast.
Let's say you take the train into the city and want to use the bike for the
last-mile leg (which might be shorter or longer than one mile.) That's $1 in
the AM and $1 in the PM. You also want to use the bike to either have lunch or
run an errand midday. That's another $2 for the midday trip. Finally, you are
going out to dinner or happy hour with friends. That's at least $1 more if you
assume the final trip back to your train is covered as part of your normal PM
commute.
So that's $5/day for an average day. If you are running a bunch of errands or
have several meetings during the day, it could be more.
Sure, you might be able to just keep a bike in the city to use, but then you
can't get a ride home from your friend or call a taxi/Uber if the weather
changes. One of the nice things about bike sharing is that you can leave the
bike and walk away -- no need to worry about locking it up or returning it to
the same spot to use the next day.
With a standard bike-sharing system, you pay a flat price and use the bike
whenever you want. If you keep your one-way trips under 1/2 hour (one hour in
some locations) there is no further charge to use the bikes in the system.
Dockless seems to favor the occasional user, standard dock system with flat
rate seems to favor the power user. Sort of like having a monthly pass on
transit.
Robbie WebberTransportation geek
All opinions are my own, and not necessarily those of any group or organization
with which I am affiliated.
Founding member, Madison Bikes...where anyone can ride a bicycle conveniently
and comfortably to any place year round.MadisonBikes.orgFollow Madison Bikes on
Facebook
On Sun, Jul 30, 2017 at 8:31 PM, Scott Morris Rose via Bikies
<[email protected]> wrote:
I was a founding member of Seattle's "Pronto!" bike share program - a
conventional system with docks - but it lost a lot of money and the city, which
subsidized it, put a fork in it after briefly considering replacing it with a
different subsidized system with electric-assist bikes. From the ashes of that
subsidized system have arisen two competing unsubsidized systems - Lime and
Spin - which both use a dockless model. The way that works is that the bikes
have wheel locks that are unlocked when the bike is rented. Locking the wheel
lock ends the rental. There are some trade-offs between the models, which
mostly in my view skew in favor of the dockless systems.
With a dockless system, there is never the problem that a user will arrive at
the dock closest to their destination only to find that they can't end the
rental due to a full dock. There is also never the problem that the dock is
further from the user's destination (as long as the destination is in the
service area, which is the Seattle city limits for both systems) that they have
a substantial hike to that destination - users park the bike wherever they can
find empty sidewalk. There is no concept of membership - users install an app
and pay only for each of the rides they take - both systems at $1/.5h. (There
is also no escalating charge for longer rentals - each .5h segment is $1.) That
lowers the barrier to entry for visitors, who only need to install and
configure an app on their phones.
On the downside, there is nothing to keep a malevolent passerby from chucking a
bike into the Ship Canal, as the bikes aren't tethered to a dock or anything
else between rentals. How substantial a problem that is, only time will tell,
but evidently it has been a problem with the similar system in Manchester, and
is a problem in Mountain View with Google's free bikes. First time I saw a
dockless share system was several years ago in Kyoto, and I suspect they have
very little problem there with vandalism, because Japan.
I had a chance to see the systems in action during my Seattle trip this
weekend, and I've attached photos of the bikes, which I didn't try as I had my
own bike with me. I did install the Spin app, and it's simple both to configure
and to use. Bikes of both systems were very prevalent in the neighborhoods I
rode in, mostly along the Ship Canal (U District, Fremont, Ballard) and
downtown. And people were riding them.
Another issue is with helmets, use of which is required by law in King County.
Neither Lime nor Spin offer helmets with their bike or as a distinct rental,
while Pronto! provided them with each bike, along with a presumably expensive
scheme for cleaning them. That's going to lead to rampant scofflaw behavior.
Or, more accurately, continue rampant scofflaw behavior - even many people on
their own bikes ignore the law.
--
S. Rose
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