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Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

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Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#131

Post by BoorishBears »

ebikelaw wrote: post #127
thezilch wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They get piled up against buildings. They exacerbate the problem that many US roads have no place for cyclists, and alternatively, cyclists incorrectly will use sidewalks. All said, in the current state, more cycling is creating a bigger problem and not solving the hard ones. Cycling is awesome. Let's fix how they coexist on roads.

Literally nobody has ever been killed by a shared bike ridden improperly upon a sidewalk. Meanwhile people are killed every day by cars on sidewalks, and we're all headed for extinction from climate change caused by cars no matter how operated. Don't tell me I am supposed to care about the infinitesimal imaginary harm of someone who chooses a bicycle, especially if that person would have normally chosen a car. As for…

A car crashing into a building is a news story.

A misplaced share bike is daily life in cities with lots of shares.

I’m not particularly against them, but they can turn into more of a nuisance than a benefit quickly.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#132

Post by woolvalley »

yonran wrote: post #96
jwilliams wrote: post #63

Just signed up for this in San Francisco -- Only to find that Russian Hill, Nob Hill, and North Beach are excluded. Plus Fort Mason, the Presidio, and anything west of the Panhandle. "San Francisco" it is not. Which I guess is fine, but they make you pay up-front, so I found that a bit of cheek. Admittedly it's only $2, but even on principle it's annoying. They should be much more transparent in the signup process. T…

One factor that may limit the deployment is San Francisco’s permit requirement, which specifies that stationless bike share companies must commit to a “service area” which must have at least 3 bikes per square mile all day, and 20% of bikes must be in Communities of Concern. See regulation http://library.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll/California/transp... and permit application https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/…

That explains the map regions

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#133

Post by woolvalley »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #120
woolvalley wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dockless jump bikes seemed to be locked to something. I think it's a requirement for riders to lock them after use, and so far, they haven't been cluttering SF. Maybe that is the compromise. No docks, but have to be locked to some sort of normal bike rack to prevent clutter. The manufacturer / city isn't responsible for maintaining expensive dock infrastructure where company A cant use company B's docks, and apar…

Do they have the same problem other bike rental companies have had in SF where users ride them to the bottom of the hills where they just stack up?

I would think that ebikes would cause stacking at the top of hills, since it does all the work for you :p

Being serious, I have no idea.

I think all bike systems will need rebalancing of some sort. Be it through cheaper pricing or other incentives or something else.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#134

Post by alangibson »

arstin wrote: post #122
alangibson wrote: post #82

I'm currently sitting in the Dutch city of Eindhoven. One of the first things you notice when you get here is that there are not bike lanes, not bike paths but very seriously bike roads on either side of the street. These are filled pretty much all the time by people of all ages on their personal bikes. There are no rental bikes anywhere. The moral of this story is that if you want people to bike, build bikeable citi…

I'm an avid biker, and I also make heavy use of my city's shared bike program. I go more miles on my own bikes, but I ride shared bikes more often. I think you're overlooking many significant use cases for shared bikes. Here's a few: - It's well below freezing out and you just want to quickly get from your apartment to the train station, drop the bike off and forget about it. - You won't be returning to that station…

Fair enough, but the difference between a biker and non-biker is not access to a bike. The difference is that one thinks it's too physically difficult and/or dangerous and the other doesn't. Thats a problem of environment, not access.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#135

Post by djrogers »

joeblau wrote: post #67
saudioger wrote: post #6

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.

Another data point of one, but when I was in Arizona in March, I tried Ofo bikes. The fact that I could ride to exactly where I wanted to go without having to find a dock was the only reason I thought it was viable. I rode to an açaí restaurant, "docked my bike" then rode the bike to work. My office was no where near where the company would have put a dock so I would say that dockless was an extremely value feature.…

> I rode to an açaí restaurant, "docked my bike" then rode the bike to work.

Sounds nice, but what do you do when someone else takes the bike while you’re eating? Whe I hear ‘dockless’ I think about the hassle of finding a bike where I want it, not the convenience of not having to drop it off...

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#136

Post by vkou »

thiagocsf wrote: post #111
gervase wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak to the complexity of managing a dockless system (and in particular, their profitability), but from a UX perspective, it's a total game-changer. In my city, we started with docked, but after a dockless company arrived, literally no-one uses the docked bikes - why put up with the extra hassle of having to return the bikes for no user benefit? The prices are already so low that I can't really see them bein…

Returning the bikes to a dock is a benefit to everyone else in the city. A dock is always placed in a location agreed by the council. It’s guaranteed to not be in anyone’s way or a safety hazard. Maybe the dockless users in your city are more conscious. In mine, they will happily leave their rentals blocking the footpath. I constantly need to stop my child’s pram and move the bike out of the way. Dockless bikes are a…

> Dockless bikes are an appropriation of public spaces by private companies and need to stop.

I'll support this, as soon as we reclaim the millions of square feet of private space appropriated by curbside parking. This would free up enough space for everyone, and their extended families to park their bikes.

If every block in my neighborhood has room for free parking for ~40 cars, then surely we could reclaim a few of those spots, for the sake of free parking for a greater number of dockless bikes.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#138

Post by maherbeg »

maherbeg wrote: post #34
wpietri wrote: 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.

As an additional data point: https://www.statista.com/statistics/397765/electric-bicycle-...

ebike sales are growing rapidly and in general will start to shape cities in europe very rapidly. That will trickle over to the US in a lot of the big cities that are already dense, and then shift over to the less dense but flatter cities (think LA!)

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#139

Post by ebikelaw »

BoorishBears wrote: post #131
ebikelaw wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally nobody has ever been killed by a shared bike ridden improperly upon a sidewalk. Meanwhile people are killed every day by cars on sidewalks, and we're all headed for extinction from climate change caused by cars no matter how operated. Don't tell me I am supposed to care about the infinitesimal imaginary harm of someone who chooses a bicycle, especially if that person would have normally chosen a car. As for…

A car crashing into a building is a news story. A misplaced share bike is daily life in cities with lots of shares. I’m not particularly against them, but they can turn into more of a nuisance than a benefit quickly.

The American sidewalk on which I stand as I write this comment is almost impassable from all the cars parked on it. The idea that “dockless” bikes are an even slight intrusion upon the American streetscape is just so stupid that I can barely bring myself to argue over it.

Re: Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition

#140

Post by ebikelaw »

BoorishBears wrote: post #130
ebikelaw wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bike shares are great even if you have a great bicycling city. I myself am a Very Serious Cyclists, more than 200 miles per week, and I still use the bike share at least weekly. Just today I had to take my car to the shop, then I took a train to another place and there was a Lime Bike so I jumped on that and went to my destination. I have no idea why people complain about bike shares, dockless or docked.

>I have no idea why people complain about bike shares, dockless or docked. You like the bike shares you’ve used, or you don’t know why people complain? Because if it’s the latter, the main reason is they can easily become a nuisance: https://www.twitter.com/hashtag/DocklessBikeFail People abuse them, and when/if the programs fail you end up with stories like this: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/25/china…

I don’t know what you’re trying to show me with that first link. It’s two scooters parked in a street parking spot that would normally be occupied by only one car. To me that’s a huge victory for urban America over the automobile.
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