DoBi - This is kind of a big deal

Did you hear that dockless bikeshare came to the DC area? It's true. About 3 months ago. There are five companies - MoBike, LimeBike, Spin, Ofo and Jump DC. Some of them operate in Montgomery County and DC. 

Arlington and Alexandria are also exploring opening their borders to the new bike services, transportation officials there said last week. 

Despite the fact that I haven't blogged about this until now, it's kind of a big deal. Like, probably the biggest thing since Capitol Bikeshare - and I thought that was pretty big, if you'll recall (back then I thought a 50-station system was "going in big". Ah, youth.)  Anyway, I have a lot of thoughts on this. 

I think it's a big deal because it will help to fill in the gaps that the Capital Bikeshare model couldn't fill. Jump is bring e-bikes and might expand to cargo bikes. Others have talked of adding child carrying options. Dockless can expand more quickly into neighboring regions and can't more flexibly serve low-trip neighborhoods. There's no dock-blocking and less walking on the back-end. So it has a lot of potential.

And I don't think it represents an existential threat to Capital Bikeshare. CaBi is still the cheapest option for frequent users. $85 a year is a tough deal to beat for daily commuters. In fact, dockless becomes insurance against empty stations. In addition, Motivate is working on its own and I'd suspect to see them add it to the mix, creating a docked/dockless hybrid. We're lucky that the DC region didn't give Motivate an exclusive contract as NYC and San Francisco did because I think this will be good for residents, and probably for CaBi too. 

One thing I'd like to see is PG County get in on this. PG has been slow to add Capital Bikeshare, with the first not coming until 2018, and even then it's only to the north part of the county. But they could add bikeshare county-wide tomorrow if they wanted to. Or at least in areas where it makes the most sense like National Harbor, the close in suburbs and Oxon Hill. 

Theft has been an issue. I've seen bikes that had their hardware damaged so they can be stolen, and I've seen some used suspiciously (kids riding them in a parking lot for 2 hours, a couple in a Hooverville in the center leg tunnel) but that's a problem they're working. Reportedly the DoBi companies are going to meet with MPD on this issue. Jump reports less theft, because their bikes are so big and removing the GPS means removing the motor making them pretty hard to ride, but they have had a few stolen.

Another issue is keeping bikes in the right zones via geofencing. Some people have taken the bikes into their homes (leading companies to show up at 6am and ask for them back I've been told). Others have been left on the Mall or on Capitol grounds, and both are off limits. Using geofencing, companies should be able to fix this problem, but it may take time. Bikes could be designed to alarm if parked in the wrong place or their could be penalty charges or points. Alternatively, points or price reductions could be used to bring bikes to certain areas - crowdsourced rebalancing if you will. Jump is already doing this through the use of "hubs", which work as dockless stations. If a user leaves a bike in a hub, they get $1 of credit on their ride. By incentivizing users to put bikes in these hubs, it streamlines their operations and makes it easier for people without smartphones to find the bikes. 

Parking is also an issue, with some bikes being placed in less-than-ideal locations. We discussed this on the BAC and some ideas being kicked around were DoBi parking zones - painted boxes on the sidewalk and (more often) on the street where DoBis need to be parked  - or penalties for back parking. I like the first, but the 2nd may just be easier with the penalty assessed to require illegal parking. Under DC law

No person shall park a bicycle: (a) Upon a highway other than the roadway against the curb; or (b) Upon a sidewalk; except in a rack to support the bicycle, against a building, or at the curb in such a manner as to afford the least obstruction to pedestrian traffic.

Break that rule and pay a $25 fine that's just passed on to DC. Jump bikes have a built in U-lock that has to be used to end the ride, so they're more likely to be legally parked, something we should consider when the final permitting requirements are written. In addition, DoBi permit recipients should be required to pay a fee to add bike parking. We're going to need a lot more if we're going to get to 10% mode share and they should be required to pitch in on that.

I'm most excited about, and know more about, Jump than the others (I've only ridden Jump and MoBike at this point). I'm somewhat bullish on e-biking as a way to help more people bike for transportation and Jump has the potential to remove a lot of the barriers for that (price, fear etc..) possibly even serving as a "gateway drug" to e-biking. I've ridden them a few times and they're pretty fun, though as noted above, not price competitive with CaBi for frequent use. 

Jump doesn't have many bikes in the area right now because they only had a few weeks to get ready between the request going out and the start of permitting in September, but on Thursday they're having a launch party as they increase to 100 bikes. They hope to get to the permitting limit of 400 by the end of 2017. If they make it past the trial period, they'll likely add charging stations at the hubs. CaBi reportedly touches each bike once every 40 days (on average). Jump needs to touch theirs every 2 days. But charging stations will reduce the amount of maintenance they need. Users will likely get credit if they park their bikes at them.  This would also make Jump a dock/DoBi hybrid.

Jump is already learning a lot from their time here. They might redesign the bikes to make the basket less appealing as a seat for a buddy (warning: they aren't strong enough for this), for example.  And they're generating tons of trip data. Requirements to share, or make public, the trip data they generate should also be in the permitting requirements. 

Permitting requirements should also address bike quality. CaBis last an average of 7 years. Not sure if that's a good metric to shoot for, but the bikes need to be roadworthy and sustainable. 

Finally, DC should look at the regulations about e-bikes, especially if Jump is going to stick around. Right now they can't be ridden on trails or sidewalks. Mostly, they don't belong on sidewalks, but it means you can't legally and safely ride one across many of the Potomac and Anacostia Bridges. I believe the Mayor can just waive that in some cases (or we can just rely on good-old-fashioned non-enforcement) but it would be better with a regulatory modification. And since e-bikes don't count as bicycles, e-bike riders remain subject to the unfair contributory negligence provision exploited by drivers lawyers..  

Comments

[Max]

As someone keen to see more bikesharing east of the anacostia river, I've been pleasantly surprised to see many of these new bikes being used in the area. I think the docklessness really helps in areas that are lower density at the frontier of Capital Bikeshare. I haven't seen any stats on this officially, but I'm willing to bet that usage is coming to more closely match the socio-demographics of DC, albeit still mostly younger people.

[Rasputin]

Max, yes I have absolutely seen in person and on maps that the dockless bikes have spread readily across the Anacostia.
What's funny about that is that many of the naysayers who were against the idea of even allowing a demo period for dockless were saying that since the dockless bikes are not government-subsidized that they would ignore eastern portions of the city in favour of more profitable and wealthier demos.
I knew it was wrong then, and it looks like luckily I was right. IF anything, docklessness makes things MORE wealth-blind.

[Washcycle]

What I don't understand is why it's more wealth-blind. DoBi is more expensive than CaBi and still requires a credit card. I wonder if it's just people taking advantage of the introductory free rides or were we just wrong about why CaBi was being under-used on the east side.

[Rasputin]

It might be that the media blitz (and lots of colourful new bikes) re-ignited some interest in them all around?
I actually had no idea (until last month) that CaBi dropped its prices. I had thought it was still super expensive like the old days when a 2 hour ride might run like $8 or whatever it was.

[Riley]

Jump app consistently shows three or four bikes available on any given day. Not an encouraging first month. Hopefully this percentage will not scale as the roll out ramps up. Have you discussed with any DoBi honchos what the level of pain is for loss and damage? Press on these systems in China has been leading with literal hills of damaged bikes. I haven't seen much press on the economics of these systems for the private vendors. Did your reporting go into that?

[Washcycle]

They're not too eager to share their financial information with me as it turns out. But more than one told me they weren't going to let broken bikes pile up in DuPont Circle.

Do you mean only 3 or 4 bikes available (like the others are out of service) or that 3 or 4 aren't being used. The latter seems normal.

[Purple Eagle]

I have seen a few bikes parked in odd places. There was one by a highway on-ramp a few days ago - I think it was the interchange between Boundary Channel Dr and Long Bridge Park. Just on the grass inside the cloverleaf. So where did the rider go? Get picked up for their carpool perhaps? I am also told bikes have been spotted at the Greenbelt metro station.

[Jeffb]

The other day I walked by a group of kids who were just hammering on some of these bikes with large rocks. I suppose they were trying to break open the rear wheel lock.

These bikes were brand new a few months ago. Many I see now look like they’ve been on the streets for years.

[DE]

I've really enjoyed the POPville posts with pics showing the odd places people are finding dockless bikeshare.

I'm not a huge fan of bikes left in inappropriate places, further annoying the bike haters among us, but haters gonna hate anyway so whatevs. My main thought about these though is the phrase "this is why we can't have nice things." CaBi's are nearly indestructible tanks, but I don't see many of these lasting the rigors of DC.

[Jack]

With five different dockless bikeshare providers (plus CaBi) competing in the DC area now, you wonder how it's going to shake out. Too much competition is going to hurt all of them, but the best may eventually rise to the top and most of the others go away.

[Smedley Burkhart]

Definitely a cool idea, but the bikes are indeed being left inappropriately, lying on peoples' front yards, and flat on sidewalks. I haven't seen any vandalized yet, but I haven't looked carefully. The ones I've seen don't look nearly as robust as CaBis. I expect that they will gradually enter the waste stream or our literal streams, like supermarket carts. If they form enough of a municipal burden, they may go away for that reason.

[Cap Hill Kieht]

I am for it but I think they should be required to have lights not just reflectors. Seen to many at night that were hard to spot.

[J Rank]

I'm a big fan of DoBi, but the aggressive tactics of vendors parking in ways that block other public right-of-way uses has to be addressed. Limebike seems to be the worst offender. They park bikes at bus stops that block the bus rear door; they park bikes that block sidewalks for wheelchairs and strollers. On 9 Jan 2018 I arrived at the Silver Spring Metro to find a lime bike parked at every single bike-locking post. I had to move a Limebike to lock my bike to a post. My concern is that DoBi will be a failed experiment if Limebike and other vendors continue to place their bikes so aggressively.

[washycle]

J, vendors aren't the ones parking, it's customers and so I'm not sure if one company is worse than another (except Jump because they have to be locked to something). I think DoBi needs to avoid blocking the sidewalk or bus access; but if bike parking spaces aren't the right places to park bikes, then I don't know where you expect them to do it.

[Adam]

I would like to have one app that allowed users to find and rent a bike from *any* of the bikeshare vendors.

And I think it would be worthwhile for cities (inc. DC) to require the vendors to allow access from third-party apps, if not one DC-funded app.

While these firms might be hoping to lock people into their platform and gain monopoly power, cities should do what they can to prevent that and encourage competition.

(The same point goes for carshare, btw-- DC should force Uber and Lyft to work either both from one app or both from third-party apps, but the current approach of having separate apps is a path toward monopoly.)

[washcycle]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2017/10/06/want-to-check-all-the-bike-share-options-at-once-theres-now-an-app-for-that/?utm_term=.498b3bc1b3e1