Last month I got a chance to tour the Capital Bikeshare warehouse. Readers will recall that at the July Bicycle Advisory Council meeting, DDOT announced that they had procured 10 more stations and that they would be installed by the end of the month, so I was surprised when I saw so many stations still sitting in the warehouse. You can see the bases and towers in the photo below.
Since then, DDOT has more widely announced the additional stations and included a map of where they're to be placed.
In the above photo you can see the TELUS ad on the dock facing the camera. That's because, as has now been widely reported, these pieces of hardware came from Ottawa, which had a deal with Telus.
Below are the rows of docks awaiting disbursement throughout the area. It's taking much longer than a month to place all of these stations, and some of these have been sitting at the warehouse since January I was told (which would mean they predate the Ottawa deal), but it's good to see that equipment is ready for placement. Adding more stations downtown will go a long way to providing better service to current users and will make rebalancing much easier.
One nice thing about reusing the Capital Bixi bikes is that they're already red, so that Alta doesn't have to strip off all the paint. They are, however, a slightly different shade, so you'll be able to spot the immigrant bikes amidst the natives.
Of course, the next batch of CaBi bikes could be even more different than these are.
the manufacturer of the software and circuitry for our Capital Bikeshare stations has committed to producing an all-new, enhanced bikeshare station that will work seamlessly with our existing system. We haven’t yet had a chance to test this new station, and cannot commit to a larger-scale expansion of Capital Bikeshare in the District until we are fully satisfied that this new hardware meets or exceeds our requirements. However, our hope is that by Spring 2015, we will be announcing the arrival of 40 or more new stations that will bring Capital Bikeshare to many more DC residents, workers, and destinations.
I hope they steal some ideas from other bikeshare companies. Things like GPS and more basket-like baskets.
Well, that is great. Looks for enough for about 20 stations. Although if they have the hardware, why are they delaying the rollout this year?
Parsing the station, 8D (spotcycle) is committing to a new station. But not a new bike.
And how does 8D get away with the IP issue?
Was this done by DDOT or Alta?
Posted by: charlie | September 16, 2014 at 08:53 AM
Does anyone know why Ottowa sold the equipment and what did we pay? Full price? Discount? I did not see this info in the Wash. Post and it seems like a pretty basic question.
Posted by: turtleshell | September 16, 2014 at 08:54 AM
@turtleshell Ottawa decided to change vendors and relaunch. Major props to whoever it was who had the sense to snap up the station components and bikes.
@washcycle the idea most in need of being stolen from another company is interoperability between systems in other cities, i.e., making your bikeshare token work like an EZ-Pass. Cabi/Alta/DDot might see it as high-effort low-yield but a certain competitor already does this and uses it in their marketing.
Posted by: cabi addict | September 16, 2014 at 09:29 AM
I almost put interoperability on the list. But it's not really a technological limitation, it's a jurisdictional one. If it were to come, would people just join the cheapest system? Would systems charge for visitor keys? and many other questions need to be worked out.
Posted by: washcycle | September 16, 2014 at 10:30 AM
Just avoiding the business of scanning your credit card, getting a punch code, finding that the last bike was taken while you were waitiing 5 minutes to get the code and getting back into line wold boost NYC bikeshare revenue a lot.
Also I forgot whether NYC charged that the $100 deposit or not, but it could be waived for users of other Alta systems (they know where you live)
Posted by: charlie | September 16, 2014 at 10:51 AM