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Provider of bike share scheme management solutions Stage Intelligence has released its 2016 Q4 data on bicycle and docking station usability and availability across Bike Share Schemes in major cities including London.
The data reveals that London leads the sector with an average usability figure for the quarter of 99.3 per cent.
New York City ranks the lowest of the major cities with an average usability figure of 90.2 per cent for the quarter. It means that on average ten per cent of riders at any given time cannot access the bikes or docking stations they want. Paris follows New York City with an average usability of 98.1 per cent with usability dipping to lows of 76.7 per cent. The inconsistency in the scheme means that it may be difficult for riders to depend on the scheme on a daily basis.
“Bike Share riders and cities benefit from Schemes that are easy and reliable to use,” said head of operations at Stage Intelligence Tom Nutley. “Operators need to make sure that riders have access to bikes when and where they need them without over servicing the market. This is where the London scheme could be at most risk. The data is very positive for London but it could be using too much city resources to manage its operations especially when there is no need to.”
Stage’s usability measure compares all docking stations that are within easy walking/cycling distance in a published 500m radius from each other, which can be altered by the BICO platform. The platform takes into account each city’s SLAs when measuring the usability of a Bike Share Scheme. A docking station is usable if there are bikes and docking points available at the station itself or at one or more of its neighbors. The BICO platform can also set custom usability defined by a specific threshold or the SLAs of different cities.
The neighbourhood approach goes beyond the usual cluster and geographic data collection method that may be a sub-optimal approach – especially in larger schemes. It can identify if Bike Share Schemes are managed well and if it is over or under servicing the cities and its riders. The BICO platform is dynamic to each city and considers each city’s user patterns and prioritisation as well as the SLAs they operate under to measure the usability of Bike Share Schemes and provide valuable data for operators.
“Our BICO platform allows us to take a deep dive into individual Bike Share Schemes in different cities and neighbourhoods around the world and find ways to improve usability within them,” said Toni Kendall-Troughton, CEO at Stage Intelligence. “We were particularly impressed with Chicago’s Bike Share scheme which was performing well without over servicing its neighbourhoods or the market. It was consistent throughout the quarter with high usability figures and over-performed on busy summer weekends to meet the rise in demand.”
