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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

#101

Post by gregsq »

kazevedo wrote: post #80
extraio wrote: post #3

I'm wondering what happens when someone gets hit by a car and complains that the bike didn't include a helmet. Don't get me wrong. I love the idea in every way, shape, and form - but I have serious questions about the legal safety issues.

Helmet use is an issue we take very seriously. Fortunately, safety has been excellent for US programs, but we try to make sure everyone has access to the right equipment and education. We do require users to sign a waiver saying they understand the risks. Ultimately, it comes down to culture - grabbing a helmet needs to become as natural as putting on your seatbelt or grabbing your coat.

I checked up on the Australian experience, a country known for strict enforcement of helmet regulations, and found this. Perhaps you'll find it relevant.

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1192.html

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

#102

Post by kazevedo »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #91
jellicle wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how those are counterpoints, in that they are all deeply unprofitable services provided by large governments that are subsidized to the tune of tens of millions of dollars per year. Maybe you should read my comment again.

I'm not sure how it matters that they're subsidized. Cars are subsidized via road building/maintenance, after all, and it's likely to cost less to maintain a few bikes than it does to maintain roads/parking for the cars that would displace them. Imagine if there were no transportation subsidies and road maintenance were privatized. A nightmare. It seems entirely reasonable that forms of transportation that can help b…

HN isn't letting me comment on the reply to this, but in response - our systems can be subsidized if necessary. We're a B2B business right now, and sell to organizations that own/operate the programs. We're working on piloting our own consumer programs in places that are ripe to support them. Ultimately, bike sharing needs to make financial sense in one way or another, and we're confident our system does that.

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

#103

Post by gav »

msrpotus wrote: post #65
mmahemoff wrote: post #32

"In addition, there is also an upfront cost of about $1,000 to $1,500 for every bike." A recent article from the Economist says London's bikes cost average price is £14,460/bike each, subsidised by government and advertising. Companies like ViaCycle will hopefully drop the price of these schemes. http://www.economist.com/node/21557527

How are they so expensive? That doesn't sound right, unless it's looking at the entire cost of the program per bike, rather than just the marginal cost of a new bike.

I'd also assume that the bikes cost significantly more because they want to use custom parts so that they are worthless to thieves.

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

#104

Post by orang55 »

Yes, the cost of installing a Bixi-like system is fairly expensive.

However, when you're talking about transportation systems, Bikesharing is an absolute steal. Repaving a city street costs $338,000 per mile. A city bus costs anywhere from $500-750,000. Subway cars and commuter railcars run in the range of $2 million each.

A 15-dock bikesharing station plus 8 bikes costs as much as a Lexus. http://www.capitalbikeshare.com/assets/pdf/cabi_station_spon...

Washington, DC built its entire bikesharing system for somewhere between $6 and $10 million. That's way less than the cost of a single 8-car Metro train.

If we're talking about a system for a large city, the infrastructure costs are low enough as to be irrelevant. If the system can cover its operating costs (which DC's does, even at a surprisingly-high $1,860/bike/year cost), it's basically a slam-dunk.

The bigger challenge will come from figuring out how to scale the system out into the suburbs.

The problems associated with a decentralized system such as ViaCycle (difficult to attract causal users/tourists, significantly more prone to theft, much more difficult to redistribute, similar maintenance costs, more expensive bikes) don't seem to compensate for the reduced capital costs.

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

#105

Post by jellicle »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #91
jellicle wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how those are counterpoints, in that they are all deeply unprofitable services provided by large governments that are subsidized to the tune of tens of millions of dollars per year. Maybe you should read my comment again.

I'm not sure how it matters that they're subsidized. Cars are subsidized via road building/maintenance, after all, and it's likely to cost less to maintain a few bikes than it does to maintain roads/parking for the cars that would displace them. Imagine if there were no transportation subsidies and road maintenance were privatized. A nightmare. It seems entirely reasonable that forms of transportation that can help b…

I think there's a qualitative difference between a business model that can sustain itself and one that relies on rich backers to dump money into it every year, forever.

Isn't HN usually full of people saying you have to figure out what customers will pay for (meaning, what customers will pay more for than it costs you to provide)? Bike-sharing is not one of those things. End-user customers will not pay you more than it costs to provide.

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

#106

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

jellicle wrote: post #105
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how it matters that they're subsidized. Cars are subsidized via road building/maintenance, after all, and it's likely to cost less to maintain a few bikes than it does to maintain roads/parking for the cars that would displace them. Imagine if there were no transportation subsidies and road maintenance were privatized. A nightmare. It seems entirely reasonable that forms of transportation that can help b…

I think there's a qualitative difference between a business model that can sustain itself and one that relies on rich backers to dump money into it every year, forever. Isn't HN usually full of people saying you have to figure out what customers will pay for (meaning, what customers will pay more for than it costs you to provide)? Bike-sharing is not one of those things. End-user customers will not pay you more than…

"Customers" includes businesses -- and governments, for that matter.

A lot of successful start-ups don't sell to consumers at all. And kazevedo comments that they are in fact structured as a B2B start-up. [1]

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4387770

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

#107

Post by jasonkester »

This is pretty common in Europe, and as mentioned elsewhere here, somewhat doomed. I couldn't find anything in the linked article explaining how the founders hope to improve on those programs.

In particular, I'm curious to see how they plan to avoid the "Velib Extreme" phenomenon:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7881079.stm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afE44cHNkEg

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

#108

Post by kazevedo »

schiffern wrote: post #92

Seems very similar to SoBi's offering. SoBi has the advantage of built-in vandalism detection, welded on GPS tracker (it looks like ViaCycle's is bolted on), a sealed shaft-driven drivetrain, and a more durable frame geometry. http://socialbicycles.com/ Exciting times. It looks like the next generation of bike sharing systems is arriving.

We do weld the locks to some of our bikes depending on the intended environment. No matter what the method, the attachment is at least semi-permanent and can't be removed by normal means. Since our system can be fitted to multiple bikes, we can easily incorporate shaft drive or a different frame if people want them. Our Biria frames are very sturdy and people love them!

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

#109

Post by graeme »

jellicle wrote: post #78
graeme wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Montreal has the same system (Bixi), with exactly the same sturdy features as the London system. Some local management issues aside, the system is running quite smoothly. It's a stretch to say "This will never work!" when something already is working, and avoiding the specific issues complained about.

Montreal Bixi is very, very, very far away from being profitable: http://blogs.montrealgazette.com/2012/03/16/bixi-raising-mon...

From the article:

"In total, the Montreal operation will bring in $7.4 million. Bixi will spend $7.3 million on operations, marketing, administration and research and development."

That's for 2012. Projections aren't results, but things don't sound too far off. What are you basing your statement on?

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

#110

Post by schiffern »

koji wrote: post #90
crazygringo wrote: post #67

How are they going to deal with the fact that demand is not geographically distributed/balanced? E.g. everyone wants to ride towards downtown in the morning, so there are no bikes left elsewhere, and there isn't enough space downtown to hold all the bikes. And only 2/3 of the morning people want to ride back in the evening, because they're doing other things in the evening. IIRC, some European cities have whole truck…

Current bike share programs do require redistribution of bicycles, often as often as twice a day. In large city operations viaCycle would likely be subject to this as well, but that leaves operation costs nominal. On university campuses we have seen the traffic to be much more free flowing, as students do not follow standard commute patterns. During standard maintenance bicycles can be moved around as needed. We have…

>We have discussed the possibility of incentivizing riders to help redistribute bicycles, although the effectiveness of this has yet to be proven.

This is almost certainly because no-one has the data or analytics yet. Seems like a very interesting problem algorithmically.

Even small incentives can have dramatic effects – look at the number of under-employed who recycle aluminum cans for 5-10¢/pop. It's by far the most cost-effective way to increase the rate of recycling. There are certainly quite a number of people willing to move bicycles a couple miles for $1-2. I know I'm beating the HN dead horse here, but markets do tend to be efficient at allocating resources when the basic costs are set correctly.

With your mobile app, you have the advantage that you know not only where a bike was picked up, but how far the customer had to travel to reach it. With so much data at your disposal, you should be able to get a pretty good predictive handle on the ebb and flow of demand in the system.

It'll be cool when I can subscribe to a higher tier to have my demand weighted more heavily. ;)

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