Stockholm Thinks It Can Have an Electric Bikeshare Program So Cheap It's Practically Free (vice.com) 53
Aaron Gordon writes via Motherboard: This past June, Stockholm introduced a new shared bicycle service to replace Stockholm City Bikes, which operated from 2006 until 2018. Since that service shut down, the city was one of many around the world swamped by shared e-scooters that littered sidewalks and streets. As a result, the city wanted to reboot a bikeshare program with a more modern approach without succumbing to the trappings of the dockless scooter and bike craze. The new service, Stockholm eBikes, started relatively small, with just over a thousand bikes this past summer, but will grow to more than 5,000 for this coming summer. However, this is not just another bikeshare program. First, all of the bikes are electric. And second, it is ridiculously, ludicrously, almost impossibly cheap to use.
The first time I stumbled on the Stockholm eBikes website and did a currency conversion, I figured there must be some mistake. The website says a 24-hour plan "just to unlock a bike and enjoy Stockholm eBikes for 24 hours" costs 11 Krona, or 98 cents at current conversion rates. A 7-day plan is 26 Krona ($2.32). A 30-day plan is 35 Krona ($3.12). And a whole year of unlimited 90-minute e-bike rides costs a measly 157 Krona, or just about $14. If you want to ride more than 90 minutes in one trip, you will be charged an extra 11 Krona (about $1) per extra hour. This is not simply cheap by e-bike rental standards. It is several orders of magnitude cheaper. And it is a story with global implications for the bikeshare industry and urban transportation in general. Because bikeshare systems have entered a paradox. The invention and proliferation of e-bikes have the potential to make bikeshare systems even more useful thanks to the effortless pedaling including on hills and higher speeds. But virtually every system has surcharges to ride an e-bike, making it expensive to use over time. "It's a truly unique system," [said Daniel Mohlin, Nordics Regional Manager for Inurba Mobility, the company that won the seven-year contract for the new bikeshare program]. "Both in terms of the technology and the setup and the pricing in combination with it." So I asked Mohlin the obvious question: How can Stockholm offer essentially the same product and service for so much less than basically every other city? The obvious assumption would be that, unlike most every bikeshare system in the world which is expected to break even without public subsidies in contrast to traditional public transportation like buses and subways, the government is helping to foot the bill of Stockholm eBikes. [...] But Mohlin said that isn't the case in Stockholm. The city isn't giving Inurba any money.
Mohlin says they plan to run a profitable bikeshare system by doing one thing most other systems do and another thing he says is too often missing. The first thing, the one that everyone does, is advertising. Inurba will be selling advertisements on the bikes and on 350 advertising locations near where the bikes are parked. But the brand will remain Stockholm eBikes. [...] Advertising will only get them so far. The entire bikeshare system, Mohlin said, has been designed to be as efficient and cost-effective as possible. And this, he says, is the biggest difference between Stockholm's system and the ones other cities offer. [...] Inurba adopted a hybrid solution that some e-scooter companies have piloted in a few cities. Instead of traditional docks, there are virtual stations, painted lines on the ground with a sign post. Users lock and unlock the bikes via an app. Locking the bikes requires being within one of the station's geofenced zones. These virtual stations not only save Inurba lots of money not having to outfit and maintain physical docks, but it also provides operational flexibility. Because there is some wiggle room in the geofence by nature of GPS's imprecision, the stations can "swallow a lot more bikes" than traditional docks, as Mohlin put it. This helps avoid the always-empty-or-always-full phenomenon many docked bikeshare systems struggle with.
Mohlin also talked up Inurba's IT infrastructure that helps them learn which stations tend to get full at what time of day and which tend to get empty. He says this enables them to be more efficient with bike-balancing efforts, that it's "basically, do the right task in the right order at the right time." Another smaller money-saver is the company uses cargo e-bikes to go around swapping out batteries, which has to happen about once every three days per bike on average. This means battery swappers aren't stuck in traffic driving a van and can swap out more batteries per worker. So far, the model appears to be working. "55,000 active users took almost 450,000 trips, averaging six per day per bike, which is generally considered high for a bikeshare system," writes Gordon. "Plus, the average trip was almost 40 minutes, much higher than most bikeshare schemes with mechanical bikes, including Helsinki where Inurba also operates the bikeshare system where the average trip is between 12 and 16 minutes."
"We're really looking forward for next year when we can get the full system in operation," Mohlin said. "But I'm confident this is a really unique system that is going to have an impact."
The first time I stumbled on the Stockholm eBikes website and did a currency conversion, I figured there must be some mistake. The website says a 24-hour plan "just to unlock a bike and enjoy Stockholm eBikes for 24 hours" costs 11 Krona, or 98 cents at current conversion rates. A 7-day plan is 26 Krona ($2.32). A 30-day plan is 35 Krona ($3.12). And a whole year of unlimited 90-minute e-bike rides costs a measly 157 Krona, or just about $14. If you want to ride more than 90 minutes in one trip, you will be charged an extra 11 Krona (about $1) per extra hour. This is not simply cheap by e-bike rental standards. It is several orders of magnitude cheaper. And it is a story with global implications for the bikeshare industry and urban transportation in general. Because bikeshare systems have entered a paradox. The invention and proliferation of e-bikes have the potential to make bikeshare systems even more useful thanks to the effortless pedaling including on hills and higher speeds. But virtually every system has surcharges to ride an e-bike, making it expensive to use over time. "It's a truly unique system," [said Daniel Mohlin, Nordics Regional Manager for Inurba Mobility, the company that won the seven-year contract for the new bikeshare program]. "Both in terms of the technology and the setup and the pricing in combination with it." So I asked Mohlin the obvious question: How can Stockholm offer essentially the same product and service for so much less than basically every other city? The obvious assumption would be that, unlike most every bikeshare system in the world which is expected to break even without public subsidies in contrast to traditional public transportation like buses and subways, the government is helping to foot the bill of Stockholm eBikes. [...] But Mohlin said that isn't the case in Stockholm. The city isn't giving Inurba any money.
Mohlin says they plan to run a profitable bikeshare system by doing one thing most other systems do and another thing he says is too often missing. The first thing, the one that everyone does, is advertising. Inurba will be selling advertisements on the bikes and on 350 advertising locations near where the bikes are parked. But the brand will remain Stockholm eBikes. [...] Advertising will only get them so far. The entire bikeshare system, Mohlin said, has been designed to be as efficient and cost-effective as possible. And this, he says, is the biggest difference between Stockholm's system and the ones other cities offer. [...] Inurba adopted a hybrid solution that some e-scooter companies have piloted in a few cities. Instead of traditional docks, there are virtual stations, painted lines on the ground with a sign post. Users lock and unlock the bikes via an app. Locking the bikes requires being within one of the station's geofenced zones. These virtual stations not only save Inurba lots of money not having to outfit and maintain physical docks, but it also provides operational flexibility. Because there is some wiggle room in the geofence by nature of GPS's imprecision, the stations can "swallow a lot more bikes" than traditional docks, as Mohlin put it. This helps avoid the always-empty-or-always-full phenomenon many docked bikeshare systems struggle with.
Mohlin also talked up Inurba's IT infrastructure that helps them learn which stations tend to get full at what time of day and which tend to get empty. He says this enables them to be more efficient with bike-balancing efforts, that it's "basically, do the right task in the right order at the right time." Another smaller money-saver is the company uses cargo e-bikes to go around swapping out batteries, which has to happen about once every three days per bike on average. This means battery swappers aren't stuck in traffic driving a van and can swap out more batteries per worker. So far, the model appears to be working. "55,000 active users took almost 450,000 trips, averaging six per day per bike, which is generally considered high for a bikeshare system," writes Gordon. "Plus, the average trip was almost 40 minutes, much higher than most bikeshare schemes with mechanical bikes, including Helsinki where Inurba also operates the bikeshare system where the average trip is between 12 and 16 minutes."
"We're really looking forward for next year when we can get the full system in operation," Mohlin said. "But I'm confident this is a really unique system that is going to have an impact."
We have something like that in Los Angeles (Score:1)
But it's mechanical bikes. We call it "Bike Theft".
Many of these wayward bikes find new homes by way of bike "chop-shops" that are more like "popup" vendor carts at malls -- but outdoors next to run down RVs or in local washes.
Great program till winter comes (Score:1)
Re:Great program till winter comes (Score:5, Informative)
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That probably holds up anywhere cold you might go. My first year of college was at the University of Illinois, and people kept biking through the winter there. I only wiped out on ice once, after which I was more careful taking turns when snow was on the ground...just like you'd be more careful driving in similar conditions. Funny how that works. :)
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Unsurprisingly, they've planned for that in Sweden:
https://www.kth.se/blogs/stude... [www.kth.se]
Re: Great program till winter comes (Score:1)
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"I ride a bike with spiked tires all winter wearing nothing same jeans and jacket as if walking. No problem!"
How far north do you live?
Biking isn't practical when the wind chill is 40 below zero.
Re: Great program till winter comes (Score:1)
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Kudos to Trondheim :) Been there and all over Norway, you have a super nice country.
I'm cycling all year round in Tallinn, 400 km southward.
It is all about cycle path maintenance and city priorities.
And those CAN be changed.
We have ubiquitous Bolt escooter use in Tallinn (+ some other brands), vandalism does not seem to be an issue.
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You can design for winter cycling [youtube.com].
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Snow and ice is not a problem if it is addressed (Score:1)
It doesn't make sense to have such sharing programs and spend millions on redesigning streets for pedestrians, bicycles and public transportation and not care about weather conditions.
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I was in Stockholm in February one year, and the roads were not too bad. Well-plowed and pretty clear. Certainly much better than the city I'm from in Canada.
If it will succeed anywhere, it's there (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the Scandinavian countries seem to have a generally lower "shitty person" content than anywhere in the rest of the world.
I don't understand why people can't seem to recognize that's why their experiments rarely work anywhere else.
Explain it how you like, they simply have fewer assholes.
Re:If it will succeed anywhere, it's there (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked for one of the well-known household name micromobility companies. I can tell you that in cities like San Francisco, or Austin, well over half of all deployed scooters would be lost to theft, or vandalism within six months. There was no possible way to make the service break even in San Francisco, the loss rate was insane.
Some scooters would be lost to simple vandalism. Some users figured out they could buy a replacement controller on Alibaba for about $12, and get a free scooter. Some people sell parts. Some people figured out they could rip out the SIM card and get free data for a week until our systems caught it. And then, soon enough, there was organized crime. After an investigation, we found a user that had stolen well over 90 scooters. Tens of thousands of dollars of equipment, and we had all kinds of evidence. The police could not have cared less. They said it was a civil issue, and we could sue, but they would take no action at all.
Re: If it will succeed anywhere, it's there (Score:5, Funny)
Re: If it will succeed anywhere, it's there (Score:5, Insightful)
It actually might be. The reason Scandanavian countries have fewer arseholes, as argStyopa puts it, is because they have better prospects, better education, and better assistance for those who are struggling. Oh, and higher wages too.
People living there are invested in society, because they see that they get returns from it. They see that there are real opportunities for people who behave well, and it's not just everyone for themselves fuck you I got mine.
Treat the cause, not the symptom.
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The police are the method of last resort for dealing with problems. If no one else deals with it, they're the people who have to deal with it.
Why do we treat homelessness as a problem for the police? Or drug addiction? It makes no sense. They aren't law enforcement problems. It's not like people are homeless by choice. But we've failed to address them in any other way, so the police get called and have no choice but to deal with the situation.
I don't question there are corrupt police out there. Maybe
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chanted by well meaning liberals who think it means "Reform the police".
Maybe they should learn what words mean if they are going to yell out a slogan as stupid as "De-fund the police".
and crime ends up actually going down when the police are on strike - as actually happened in NYC
NYC police are legally prohibited from striking. The police were still doing their job, they just scaled back some of their activities.
...The scientists found that civilian complaints of major crimes dropped by about 3% to 6% during the slowdown.
So cops are causing 3-6% more major crime? How does that even work? Even if we assume 3-6% is statistically significant, some number of people probably didn't bother to report things because they knew the police were being less responsive.
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So cops are causing 3-6% more major crime? How does that even work? Even if we assume 3-6% is statistically significant, some number of people probably didn't bother to report things because they knew the police were being less responsive.
...or police sent less patrols who caught less black people and planted less marijuana bags to get monthly arrest quota.
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"nobody actually believes in except a handful of anarchists,"
Aside from the Minneapolis City Council, you mean?
Or here's 7 minutes of Democrat leaders talking about defunding the police: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Well, obviously the solution to bike theft is to defund the police.
If they would rather spend their time harassing the homeless for eating food from the trash (which I've seen happen) instead of going after actual criminals we absolutely should defund them.
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Why not have rental stations, places you have to return the bikes/scooters to?
Every two blocks or so, there is place to rent, or return, the vehicle. You unplug the vehicle at one station, and must return it to another. When you plug the vehicle in, your account will be adjusted.
If you don't plug the vehicle in, at an approved station, you will be charged for the vehicle. If the vehicle is damaged, you will be charged for that damage.
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Despite its length, TFS skipped the part where they talk about their problems with theft and vandalism:
And, like most every bikeshare system anywhere, they struggled with vandalism. There’s “a lot of water in Stockholm which is not good for bikes,” he said, referring to the classic activity of tossing dockless bikes into rivers. They also found many bikes harvested for parts with nothing left other than a frame, but that has slowed in recent months. “It feels like the market is saturated for our parts now,” Mohlin said.
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So why didn't you?
Bringing criminal charges against someone is extremely difficult and you have a high bar ("beyond a reasonable doubt"). Plus given the way the state has to bring up charges and such, it costs a lot in terms of resources.
Bringing a civil charge against someone is much easier ("balance of probabilities"), and they can literally end up indebted to you for life as that sort of this can't be easily discharged
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Well, they've been importing heavily to keep up with the rest of us ;).
Re: If it will succeed anywhere, it's there (Score:2)
Re: If it will succeed anywhere, it's there (Score:2)
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Explain it how you like, they simply have fewer assholes.
I wonder if this is some kind of biased view of other parts of the world. The grass is greener etc. We hear this comment over and over again, that something fails because people are arseholes. But in so many cases the thing in question has already been in place and there's been no issue.
e.g. Recent Starlink article for airlines. The comments were full of "I don't want to sit in a plane listening to someone talking on the phone!". Do you do that now? Because phones in the back of the seats have been a thing
Re: If it will succeed anywhere, it's there (Score:2)
I live in Sweden, and I agree that most people here can be trusted.
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Here's the funny thing - the one place in the US where we have comparable levels of cohesion and trust - rural midwestern MN (I can't really count the Twin Cities any longer). ...which is culturally majority Scandinavian. For a little while yet anyway. Clean, nice, a little standoffish, very low crime. People quite routinely leave their cars parked and running outside a store in the depths of winter because it's damned cold. And who would steal it? It's not theirs.
Please don't tell anyone, though, beca
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In other words, no Blacks. (Score:1)
And if there are any, they know their place and watch their step.
Just like the White Bicycle Plan in Amsterdam (Score:1)
Having fate in citizens to do the right thing only works to a limited degree. That is why we need laws.
Regardless how gentle the Swedes are, I suspect a quick end for this plan.
Just like in Luxembourg (Score:1)
We have something very much like the Stockholm system in Luxembourg. The subscription is 2 EUR for a day, 5 EUR for three days or 18 EUR per year. The free period per rental is 30 min (smaller city...), which resets 3 min after you return the bike IIRC (you can get a new free 30 min rental 3 min after returning the previous one). The bikes started non-electric but are now electric, with negligible price change. Beyond the 30 min, it is 1 EUR/h with a maximum of 5 EUR up to 24h.
To avoid the Amsterdam white b
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Pic of the Stockholm ebikes https://www.electrive.net/wp-c... [electrive.net] The control panel is integrated to the handlebars and steering column, repainting won't make these unrecognizable.
somebody is paying for it (Score:2)
Re: somebody is paying for it (Score:2)
Sounds plausible. (Score:2)
Bicycles are off the charts when it comes to over-all efficiency and price/performance for modern individual traffic. Maintenance is trivial and dirt cheap if they're built the right way.
The key feature (Score:3)
The key feature of this program is that approximately 100% of the people in its environment are Swedes. This system will also work well in other places where 100% of the population is Swedes.