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ViaCycle (YC S12) Is A Zipcar For Bikes, Coming To San Francisco Soon

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Re: ViaCycle (YC S12) Is A Zipcar For Bikes, Coming To San Francisco Soon

#4

Post by ddt »

koenigdavidmj wrote: post #2

Puget Sound Bike Share ( http://pugetsoundbikeshare.org/ ) is in the early planning stages of getting something similar set up in Seattle.

I've had the pleasure of talking to the guys from ViaCycle. Koji himself is a UW grad. Apparently it's difficult to do bike sharing in Seattle because of King County's helmet law.

Re: ViaCycle (YC S12) Is A Zipcar For Bikes, Coming To San Francisco Soon

#5

Post by jhuckestein »

In Germany we have a system like this called call-a-bike (it's run by the german railway!). It works surprisingly well. You're allowed to leave the bikes wherever you want and if they are left unused for a while a truck will come and move them back to a central location.

I really like what via cycle has done with the SMS unlocking. Back when I was in Germany, almost three years ago now (!), you had to call a service line to find/unlock a bike. Late at night there were usually wait times and it was especially difficult to manage the entire process if you were a little tipsy.

There's similar systems in many other European countries. I hear great things about a system in France called velib (I think).

Edit: I forgot to mention, the German bikes also have a second seat on the back. I'm not sure from the picture if this is also true for viaCycle but it's definitely one of the best features. Here's a picture http://www.pedelecforum.de/forum/imgcache/5382.png*

Re: ViaCycle (YC S12) Is A Zipcar For Bikes, Coming To San Francisco Soon

#6

Post by graeme »

Interesting. I'm in Montreal, the birthplace of Bixi, which runs the London bike share program, and the upcoming NYC program as well as many others. Works fairly well, but apart from the cost the docking stations cost the city parking revenue.

One major administrative cost is moving bikes around. People tend to take them downtown during the day, and out of the town at night. Even if you don't need docks, you still have to move bikes.

Re: ViaCycle (YC S12) Is A Zipcar For Bikes, Coming To San Francisco Soon

#9

Post by koji »

jhuckestein wrote: post #5

In Germany we have a system like this called call-a-bike (it's run by the german railway!). It works surprisingly well. You're allowed to leave the bikes wherever you want and if they are left unused for a while a truck will come and move them back to a central location. I really like what via cycle has done with the SMS unlocking. Back when I was in Germany, almost three years ago now (!), you had to call a service…

Call a bike in Germany is definitely a great system! viaCycle strives to improve on this by geo-fencing the bicycles when they need to be checked back into the system (and so you are no longer charged for usage). This helps maintain distribution and gives users reliable, structured locations to get bicycles, so they're not just strewn across cities.
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