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Biggest Bike Share in the world
Written By idontspam - 3 June, 2011
Bangalore Last Mile Transportation Infrastructure cycle infrastructure bike sharing NMT
Anyone who claims that bike-sharing is a European-style transportation innovation has clearly never set foot in Hangzhou, China. The 50,000-bike system in this southern China city of almost 7 million people (about 1.5 million people fewer than New York City) blows all other bike-shares off the map. As Bradley Schroeder of theInstitute for Transportation and Development Policy said, "I don't think there is anywhere you can stand in Hangzhou for more than a minute or two where you wouldn't have a Hangzhou Public Bike go past you."
Hangzhou's 2,050 bike-share stations are spaced less than a thousand feet from each other in the city center, and on an average day riders make 240,000 trips using the system. Its popularity and success have set a new standard for bike-sharing in Asia. And the city is far from finished. The Hangzhou Bicycle Company plans to expand the bike-share system to 175,000 bikes by 2020!
COMMENTS
Automated bicycle sharing system in Bangalore
Haseeb Arfath - 28 June, 2011 - 07:50
Hi Guys! I am a new entrant in here...to start of i am the co-founder-CMD of Kerberon Automations Pvt Ltd (http://www.kerberonautomations.com/) the company that is setting up the centralized bicycle sharing platform in the CBD area of our city. Got a call yesterday from Srinidhi (the admin/team lead of praja) asking me to get involved with this community...going through it I ve to thank him for introducing me to his very informative online community portal!....I would like all the members in here to let me know of any suggestions they would like to see in this system that would be set up by july 30th and i promise we will consider them! To let you know more about our plans here's the TOI article
Now the updates since then!
- Closed a deal with a French bicycle company called Btwin (i am sure the cyclists here know about this very cool bicycle company) to supply unique custom made bicycles for ATCAG( tats what the platform would be called) and already the first lot is shipped from their manufacturing facility.
- Finalizing the locations with property owners...almost done there....
- Work is in full swing at our docking station manufacturing facility....
- Started an interaction with namma bengalurians by registering with praja.in :P
- In talks with different ministries/departments of both central and state governments to take this to much much greater level and not just CBD and Bangalore to benefit the end users!
About the system:
- Still unclear about the fares!! (the poll up in praja must help!! :) )
- First 45 minutes of use will be free.
- The user needs to furnish Residential address proof, identity proof to get his smart card.
- Totally automated! ...like in any other European city but completely different in design that lets us get the system up and running within a few hours!
I request you to please put in those suggestions/wishes and queries and I promise to actively take forward the conversations :)
idontspam - 28 June, 2011 - 15:53
Haseeb, So how many stations are you planning to have? does the pickup & drop have to be at the same station? How do you balance the bike availability if not?
r2mys - 29 June, 2011 - 07:18
Haseeb, It is very nice to see progress from your team on bike rental program. I would like to add few additional points to be considered while designing this system.
o Bike rental at CBD and return at another location within Bangalore : Can this be supported? I understand that CBD will be the only area where rentals are available to begin with, but some commuters may want to bike to nearby places such as Indiranagar, CMH road etc and drop their bike.
o Bike rental for more than a day : Can a user rent a bike and keep for more than 24 hrs ? I believe you should collect a security deposit to ensure safety of bikes.
o Offer basic types of bikes for the program : Initial commuters could be IT and business folks, but once this gears momentum, this system should offer rental at much lower cost. To accommodate this, basic bikes needs to be added to the inventory, so that the cost for renting such bikes is lesser than geared bikes.
o Introduce monthly/yearly rental options: Please include rental options based on yearly plan, so that there is more incentives for regular bikers. Capital bikeshare in DC offer yearly plan for $75.
o Rental renewal through SMS. This feature is a must, considering that one many not be aware of the balance amount in his/her account at the time of renting, and need a quick and easy way to recharge.
o Bike security : Ensure that there are one or 2 security personnel at each station. Even though the system operates without any such support in other countries, it is important here in India.
o Validate bike condition upon return : Personnel needs to validate condition of the bike upon return. If the bike is damaged, then the only partial amount of security deposit will be refunded.
o Have a carrier ( in the front : Refer bike design in capital bikeshare) in all rental bikes. This will help commuters carry any bags, and laptops etc, while they use bikes.
o Option to rent(or buy) bike helmet and purchase basic air filter(similat to totobobo filter?) for nominal cost at prominent stations. You cannot expect people to bring helmet along with them always, and riding without helmet in CBD is definitely not safe.
o Define operating times for bike rental program. My suggestion is 6:30 AM to 9:30 PM.
Last, but not the least: There needs to be a detailed "use case" document (if it is not already prepared) for this project. This document will also help in creating milestones and a roadmap for this service.
Haseeb Arfath - 29 June, 2011 - 10:47
Hi guys thanks for your interest in this!
@idontspam:
- the docking stations are centrally connected hence you can take a bike from any docking station and return it any other...
- We are planning 6 as indicated in the newspaper
- Bike availability will be monitored and taken care of.
@r2mys:
- Point 1 of above reply takes care of your question, yeah as indicated in the article we will expand rapidly :)
- As of now we cannot support bike rentals for more than a day because to start off there will be limited bikes so other users will face problems of unavailability of bikes.
- We want to encourage our users to use bicycles, even though we are using imported bicycles we wont burn hole in their pockets.
- I will make a note of this .
- All other points have been taken care of :)
Thanks guys!
idontspam - 24 June, 2011 - 02:52
Yay! CBD gets bike sharing
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