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Gobee.bike pulls out of France due to mass destruction of its bike fleet

theguardian.com

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Re: Gobee.bike pulls out of France due to mass destruction of its bike fleet

#61

Post by Freak_NL »

icebraining wrote: post #60
Freak_NL wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of problems with fining someone after the fact. You have no proof that the last renter actually left the bicycle exactly like that (they may have left it neatly parked just a few metres away and someone purposely moved it), and the renter is quite likely to be a foreign tourist (fining them is near impossible without the benefit of a license plate like you have with a car).

You have no proof that the last renter actually left the bicycle exactly like that (they may have left it neatly parked just a few metres away and someone purposely moved it) How so? Gobee can just check where it was the moment the renter locked it. the renter is quite likely to be a foreign tourist (fining them is near impossible without the benefit of a license plate like you have with a car). Gobee uses digital pa…

Gobee knows who paid, but that doesn't mean the municipal police can fine that person using the same payment method. Getting fines paid by foreigners is a hard problem to solve, because ignoring these fines even if your address is known just works for most people.

Re: Gobee.bike pulls out of France due to mass destruction of its bike fleet

#62

Post by cuonic »

boudin wrote: post #55
cuonic wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used the Gobee.bike rental service in both Turin and Milan, and the only vandalism I encountered were two bikes that had been thrown into the Navigli canal, other than that it didn't appear to be much of a problem in Italy. For the French market maybe they need to look into attaching the device to a physical object (lamp post, docking station), other than just locking the rear wheel, to keep the oppurtunists at bay…

In this article (in french), they say that Gobee face the same issue in Italy (60% of destroyed or stolen bikes) and they're gonna stop their activity there too. They also say that Globee already had to stop their activity in Brussels for the same reasons. http://mobile.lemonde.fr/entreprises/article/2018/02/25/les-...

Wow that's dissapointing, such a shame. The most surprising example is in Reims, France where they provided 400 bikes in November 2017, only 20 fully functional bikes remained in January this year. The rest were either vandalised, broken or stolen.

Re: Gobee.bike pulls out of France due to mass destruction of its bike fleet

#63

Post by Ecco »

zik wrote: post #47
Ecco wrote: post #8

For some reason nobody talks about the extreme nuisance of those bikes. Customers would just drop them literally anywhere : on the sidewalk blocking pedestrians, right in the middle of the street blocking cars, in front of building doors preventing people from entering, etc... Such a terrible nuisance, and something to be expected since there is such little room in the Parisian streets (you can’t seriously expect cus…

> For some reason nobody talks about the extreme nuisance of those bikes. In Melbourne where we have oBike no-one talks about anything else.

Well... Apparently there is a way to get those businesses to stop :-D

Re: Gobee.bike pulls out of France due to mass destruction of its bike fleet

#64

Post by misja111 »

A similar thing is happening in Switzerland: http://www.20min.ch/finance/news/story/Schweizer-sehen-O-Bik... (in German).

Apparently some people see the rental bikes from this company, O-bike, as an unwanted Chinese intrusion into their country.

Re: Gobee.bike pulls out of France due to mass destruction of its bike fleet

#65

Post by boudin »

cuonic wrote: post #62
boudin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this article (in french), they say that Gobee face the same issue in Italy (60% of destroyed or stolen bikes) and they're gonna stop their activity there too. They also say that Globee already had to stop their activity in Brussels for the same reasons. http://mobile.lemonde.fr/entreprises/article/2018/02/25/les-...

Wow that's dissapointing, such a shame. The most surprising example is in Reims, France where they provided 400 bikes in November 2017, only 20 fully functional bikes remained in January this year. The rest were either vandalised, broken or stolen.

Indeed... After, it's hard to make any deduction. Public bikes are widespreaded in France, have been there for a long time, and seems to work quite well (most of those are dockable though). It seems to me that this company got something very wrong in their business model if they face this issue in a lot of places.

Re: Gobee.bike pulls out of France due to mass destruction of its bike fleet

#66

Post by davidzweig »

Tharkun wrote: post #27

There's only so much space in cities. Getting rid of bikes is the wrong move. Cars take up so much more space and cause a plethora of negative effects. Interesting to see that this approach of vandalism is working. It's a shame people aren't physically strong enough to throw cars into rivers and from rooftops. Perhaps then Paris could be rid of its car problem.

Yes, that's a nice idea. No cars in the city. Pedestrianise half the streets. Plant some trees. Double the number of busses (electric? China has lots). Allow delivery vehicles between certain hours. I think it'd be great.. much less traffic noise, easier to cycle, more public spaces. Maybe it'd be like the photos of Eastern Europe in the 70s/80s, with wide empty streets. I enjoy my car, but not in the city, and when most people in a city drive, it must be a net loss.

Re: Gobee.bike pulls out of France due to mass destruction of its bike fleet

#67

Post by arnaud12 »

roddux wrote: post #26
voltagex_ wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got some figures to back up that claim? http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/France/Unit...

Unless my reading comprehension has taken a serious dive this morning, all the sources NationMaster lists appear to be a good 5 to 10 years out of date. In other words, that would exclude information about crimes since the recent demographic changes that Paris has experienced.

What changes are you referring to?

Re: Gobee.bike pulls out of France due to mass destruction of its bike fleet

#68

Post by lower »

steinerj wrote: post #7

I'm surprised... Cologne, Germany has dockless bike rental for more than a decade, but none of the operators complain about excessive vandalism. Culturally it shouldn't be to different from France. The DB bikes were pretty sturdy though - I typically referred to 'renting a tank'. There were some rumours the Chinese bike rentals were only after their customer's data, since none of their models could've been profitable…

But even in Germany there has been a fair amount of vandalism against new bike sharing companies.

In Munich, Deutsche Bahn has successfully operated a dockless bike sharing scheme for more than a decade. Last year, oBike dumped thousands of bikes in the streets, and these have been subject of quite a bit of vandalism. The reason is probably that the introduction was poorly managed. They literally dumped a huge number of bikes in the streets overnight, which was a bit of a nuisance and probably kind of invited vandalism.

Re: Gobee.bike pulls out of France due to mass destruction of its bike fleet

#69

Post by toomuchtodo »

ArmandGrillet wrote: post #17
steinerj wrote: post #7

I'm surprised... Cologne, Germany has dockless bike rental for more than a decade, but none of the operators complain about excessive vandalism. Culturally it shouldn't be to different from France. The DB bikes were pretty sturdy though - I typically referred to 'renting a tank'. There were some rumours the Chinese bike rentals were only after their customer's data, since none of their models could've been profitable…

> Culturally it shouldn't be to different from France. I'm French and living in Germany, I laughed while reading this. The countries are close to each others but the culture is different, especially concerning vandalism/individualism. I have many examples like the cleanliness of public spaces to the state of public bikes (comparing Velib' v. StadtRAD, the German version works way better), the general feeling being th…

Germany seems to operate under the Greek proverb, “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they shall never sit in.” I’m quite envious of them as a culture (being American).

Re: Gobee.bike pulls out of France due to mass destruction of its bike fleet

#70

Post by KozmoNau7 »

davidzweig wrote: post #66
Tharkun wrote: post #27

There's only so much space in cities. Getting rid of bikes is the wrong move. Cars take up so much more space and cause a plethora of negative effects. Interesting to see that this approach of vandalism is working. It's a shame people aren't physically strong enough to throw cars into rivers and from rooftops. Perhaps then Paris could be rid of its car problem.

Yes, that's a nice idea. No cars in the city. Pedestrianise half the streets. Plant some trees. Double the number of busses (electric? China has lots). Allow delivery vehicles between certain hours. I think it'd be great.. much less traffic noise, easier to cycle, more public spaces. Maybe it'd be like the photos of Eastern Europe in the 70s/80s, with wide empty streets. I enjoy my car, but not in the city, and when…

That would be amazing. I'm hoping Copenhagen gets there in my lifetime.
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