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Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

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41–50 of 315 posts

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#41

Does anyone know if going dockless increases ridership in any significant way? The consumer benefits seem great but it seems like such a nightmare to maintain compared to a docking system.

Anecdotally, Seattle had a docked bike-share a few years a go that shut down a short while later because no one used it, and recently launched a dockless bikeshare that I've been using a lot. From a customer perspective, it's a night-and-day difference in usability.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#42
post #25
post #7

This is a puzzle to me. Uber faces some critical issues ahead. If they can solve them, the bikes will be a rounding error. If they can't, the bike business won't be enough to save them. Why add the complexity when they could buy or build something later? I especially can't figure out why the Jump CEO would do it. The odds of their work surviving to the 10 year mark seems so small. It reminds me of something like Dodg…

These bikes are definitely going to eat into the number of uber rides. It's happened to me personally where I compare the time an Uber ride would take vs a bike and I end up choosing the bike. Interestingly this weekend I ended up choosing an electric scooter over a bike.These things are going to be used in a continuum depending on the situation, especially for younger people in urban environments.

I did the exact same thing. Those electric scooters are also a lot more fun than sitting in someone's Prius. Especially as the weather here in DC warms up, I can see myself shelling out the $2 fee for a bike/scooter way more often than I'd be willing to spend $8-10 for a Lyft.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#43

Does anyone know if going dockless increases ridership in any significant way? The consumer benefits seem great but it seems like such a nightmare to maintain compared to a docking system.

> The consumer benefits seem great How so? We have dockless bikes here (the Chinese Mobike) but it seems like you never know where to pick them up. At less with the public bikes, I know where is the closest docking station to my house.

> but it seems like you never know where to pick them up.

That's a major design failure on their part then. Seattle's dockless bikes all have GPS trackers so you can see them on a map on the phone app.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data point of one here, but docked bike share programs are a novelty for me, maybe useful on occasional weekends, but dockless makes it viable for replacing almost all use of public transit and ride sharing, including (especially) daily commute. Orders of magnitude difference in my personal usage.

Curious why? Just availability?

IME (Boston's Hubway), docked bikes are not reliable at rush hour. Even if there's a bike available at your point of departure, there's no guarantee of a slot available at the destination. I do use Hubways off-peak where it's much more reliable and I'm usually not on popular routes.

But generally, I'm riding my own bike and the days where I'm taking transit+bikeshare are rather low.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#45

Does anyone know if going dockless increases ridership in any significant way? The consumer benefits seem great but it seems like such a nightmare to maintain compared to a docking system.

Yes, because docked bikes need to be done in cooperation with a city or business to install a dock station. With dockerless, the streets where I live have just been littered with bikes and scooters.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#46
post #7

This is a puzzle to me. Uber faces some critical issues ahead. If they can solve them, the bikes will be a rounding error. If they can't, the bike business won't be enough to save them. Why add the complexity when they could buy or build something later? I especially can't figure out why the Jump CEO would do it. The odds of their work surviving to the 10 year mark seems so small. It reminds me of something like Dodg…

I think you may underestimate the impact e-bikes are going to have on major (non-car centric) cities. They'll likely reshape cities significantly as infrastructure gets improved for biking. You can get significant traffic density improvements by pushing bikes instead of cars, and e-bikes make this more accessible.

That would take a lot of political will to do something like that though and it would take YEARS! I don't think the US is a great market (right now) for city-bikes. Outside of maybe Manhattan & SF I can't think of any major city where a bike would take you places faster/better than another way of transportation would. When you consider all the hassles that biking as a transportation comes with, I doubt this has any large potential (compared to the Uber scale). Could be wrong though. I actually really hope I am!

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#47

Awesome! Having used Jump this weekend, I wouldn't say dockless is the main value prop to me as a customer - it's the power assist that makes it feel more like a scooter than a bike. Going medium distances (1-2 miles) and up and down steep hills in SF was a breeze. If you're commuting, it's "sweat free." IMO Uber Pool/Lyft Line has gotten so slow (I'm sure Pool/Line's share of total rides vs regular X/Lyft is more th…

Have you tried Uber Pool Express instead of regular Uber Pool. I use it for commuting daily and it usually only takes 10 minutes longer than an UberX.

How is Express better than Pool? It's the same or slower. Same issues for me (waiting 5-10 minutes for pickup, then the unknown factor of whether there's 2 others already in the car or the driver will need to pick up 1-2 after you are picked up).

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may underestimate the impact e-bikes are going to have on major (non-car centric) cities. They'll likely reshape cities significantly as infrastructure gets improved for biking. You can get significant traffic density improvements by pushing bikes instead of cars, and e-bikes make this more accessible.

That would take a lot of political will to do something like that though and it would take YEARS! I don't think the US is a great market (right now) for city-bikes. Outside of maybe Manhattan & SF I can't think of any major city where a bike would take you places faster/better than another way of transportation would. When you consider all the hassles that biking as a transportation comes with, I doubt this has any l…

Seattle? Portland? Minneapolis/St. Paul? You might consider bicycling while you travel more. In Seattle alone, OFO, LimeBike, and Spin are all competing.

American bicycle infrastructure is behind, but it exists. I don't own a car. I get around those cities on bike without issue. It's as fast or faster than a car in many cases and I'm peddling the old fashioned way (with legs).

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#49
post #7

This is a puzzle to me. Uber faces some critical issues ahead. If they can solve them, the bikes will be a rounding error. If they can't, the bike business won't be enough to save them. Why add the complexity when they could buy or build something later? I especially can't figure out why the Jump CEO would do it. The odds of their work surviving to the 10 year mark seems so small. It reminds me of something like Dodg…

I think you may underestimate the impact e-bikes are going to have on major (non-car centric) cities. They'll likely reshape cities significantly as infrastructure gets improved for biking. You can get significant traffic density improvements by pushing bikes instead of cars, and e-bikes make this more accessible.

Yes, but is the US the area where the product will have the most revolutionary impact? In my view, I would target high density cities like Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, Delhi, Paris, etc.

Europe and Asia seem like the most important markets for the technology rather than the US which is littered with sprawled out cities.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#50

Does anyone know if going dockless increases ridership in any significant way? The consumer benefits seem great but it seems like such a nightmare to maintain compared to a docking system.

I think the additional overhead versus a docked system isn't as big as you think. The popular dock-based DC BikeShare requires a whole fleet of vans picking up bikes from completely full docks and redistributing them elsewhere.

They finally set up a system where there's an employee waiting by a popular downtown bike rack to manually check in your bike because the rack would otherwise be full with a line of other people waiting for an open slot.

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