We live in a golden age of bike-sharing schemes. But is this interesting form of public transportation effective? Like most things, the answer isn't as simple as 'yes' or 'no.'
A quick look at some of the things that make bike-sharing work (or not):
Number of bike share programs worldwide: 200
Number of bike-sharing schemes earning yearly profits: 0
Number of US cities with Bike Share programs: 10
Number of bikes in Washington’s bike share program: 1,000
Cost of subsidization per bicycle: $7,000
Expected number of bikes in New York’s scheme next year: 10,000
Number bikes in Paris Velib: 20,000
Percentage of original bikes destroyed/stolen: 80
Percentage of bikes stolen/vandalized in Edmonton’s People’s Pedal program: 95
Year Hangzhou bike share started: 2008
Number of bikes in 2008: 2,800
Distance between docking stations: ¼ mile
Number of bike share bicycles in Hangzhou today: 50,000
Number of annual tourists in Hangzhou: 20 million
Number of annual tourists in London: 15 million
Month Guangzhou officials discussed implementing bike share: May 2010
Month bike share launched: June 2010
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A few first-hand-numbers.
Call a bike – Stuttgart:
Lauchned in 2007 with around 400 bikes and about 633 locking stations on 64 fixed locations to rent and bring back.
First 30 min are free of charge. After that they are charged by the minute (6 or 8 Euro cent p. minute).
110.000 is the costs the city has to pay for the actual loss of money for the first 30 minutes – but they are willing to play, due to reduction of carbon and motorized individual traffic.
In 2007 80 percent of all rents were within the free-of-charge 30 minutes. 47 percent of the users combined the offer with others (like LRT, Metro, bus) by the public transportation of Stuttgart.
A bike is said to cost around 700 Euro.