CASE Bike Sharing Bike-sharing programs are now common in many of the world’s la
ID: 339753 • Letter: C
Question
CASE Bike Sharing
Bike-sharing programs are now common in many of the world’s large cities, including London, Paris, Singapore, and New York, along with many smaller cities. These programs are meant to provide an environmentally friendly alternative mode of transportation. But they are also viewed as a bit of a status symbol—the Bloomberg administration in New York City (which established New York’s program) describes bike sharing as a hallmark of a world-class city. While there is a strong “feel good” nature to bike sharing, to ultimately have an impact, a bike-sharing program needs to work, meaning it needs to provide a service that customers value at a price they are willing to pay. And that requires that a bike-sharing program gets its operations right.
When it started in 2013, the New York City Citi Bike sharing program had about 6000 bikes and 330 stations. Each station consists of a series of docks (generally in the range of 10 to 40). Each dock can hold a single bike. To use the program, a rider first purchases an access pass (e.g., an annual pass, a daily pass, etc.) and then uses that pass to unlock a bike at a station. Next, the individual rides wherever he or she wants and then returns the bike to another dock at another station.
From the point of view of the rider, there are a few potential inconveniences. For one, there might not be a station close to where the rider is (work or home) or where the rider wants to go. However, Figure 17.10 shows that in many cases there is a bike station every couple of blocks. Another issue is the availability of bikes—a rider might walk to a station only to discover that all of the bikes are in use. Page 602Finally, there is the availability of docks—a rider might ride to a station, hoping to return a bike, but find all of the docks at that station occupied with another bike. There are apps available to help riders predict where bikes and docks are available, but those apps cannot eliminate this issue.
Figure 17.10 Locations of Citi Bike stations in lower Manhattan Source: CitiBike/Map data Google
For a program to be successful, it must ensure that the earlier mentioned inconveniences of “no bikes” or “no docks” are not too problematic; otherwise, people won’t use the system. But there are several obstacles that make it challenging to achieve that service goal, while also keeping investment in the program at a reasonable level. For instance, demand for bike sharing varies throughout the year. As Figure 17.11 reveals, and as you would expect, riding a bike is more pleasant when the weather is nice—not too hot, not too cold, and definitely not too rainy. The day of the week also matters for the number of desired rides—weekend versus workday. Finally, there is a predictable ebb and flow of bikes throughout the day in the city.
Figure 17.11 Daily trips in New York’s bike-sharing program
Figure 17.12 shows the location of bikes at two different times of day. At 11:14 a.m., many of the bikes are in the financial district—people ride bikes to work and then leave the bikes near where they work. At 3:29 a.m., most people are Page 603at home, which is why at that time there are more bikes in the East and West Village. As a result of this pattern, if you take a bike to the financial district late in the morning, you might not be able to find a dock at your preferred station. Similarly, if you leave your apartment in the East Village late in the morning, you might not find a bike.
Figure 17.12 Location and number of available bikes (measured by the width of the circle) at two different times on June 21, 2013. The left panel is 11:14 a.m. and the right panel is 3:29 a.m.Source: CitiBike/Map data Google/newyorker.com
What are some examples of system inhibitors—variability, waste, and inflexibility—present in a bike-sharing program?
Is there evidence of blocking and starving in the bike-sharing program?
What are some of the options to improve the quality of the service? What are the pros and cons of each option from various perspectives (e.g., the cost of the program, the quality of the service provided, etc.)?
Explanation / Answer
The system inhibitors include variability factors like the seasonality of the business ( more customers in pleasant weather months), availability issues with bikes and docks during different part of the day, and the convenience of access to the customer when he /she needs the bike. The variability results in the excessive inventory of bike / docks during sometime and lost sales at other time. Variability also affects the profitability due to loss of opportunity and customer reliability in the long run.
Process blocking happens when there s no room for the work in progress to hold before bottleneck, whereas process starvation happens when there is no material supply ahead of bottleneck. In bike sharing program, both the phenomenon are present whrere a customer is waiting for clearance of dock for the bike to deposit, whereas at some other place, there is no bike at all because the resource constraints has impaired the flow of bikes through the system.
Augmentation of capacity will ease the pressure on the bike sharing system where more bikes will be able to be stored. This will entail cost, varying with location. Maybe it should start with the most critical points where bottleneck happens and profitability be analysed before going ahead with other locations. The cons of the option is that during low season, it will be a blocked inventory unless the docks can be used for some other purpose.
Utilising the bikes during lean season. This can be done by organising bike school where younsters ( and others) can learn to ride bikes along with a course in road safety and get a certification on completion. The course if run during lean summer season, may get some revenue,as it is holiday time in schools.
Use of technology for predicting availability of bike and dock. The mobile application can make it possible to predict the availability of bike dock, just like a taxi sharing application. This will save lot of time and effort for the user, causing great convenience.
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