KCRag Forum

Would love to see a station at Hospital Hill, allowing me to rent a bike in NKC and take it to work boosted by a streetcar ride.

Guess bike sharing is moving bigtime.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/mobi ... 00852.html

Olathe is apparently exploring a bikeshare system...

http://olathebikeshare.com/

northlandnate wrote:Would love to see a station at Hospital Hill, allowing me to rent a bike in NKC and take it to work boosted by a streetcar ride.

You should encourage this, maybe start with HR dept. It may also encourage adding a bikeshare station at 22nd/Grand MAX stop (maybe the hospital will sponsor it).

Was in Dallas a couple of weeks ago - their bike share system is the one where the bikes aren't located at pre-placed stalls, you just find a bike and unlock it with the app or credit card and ditch it wherever. After seeing bikes ditched in piles or groups parked in the middle of sidewalks, I'm so glad KC went with the model that uses stations.

Dockless could work with some structure, such as using designated bike racks issued a city permit. The City could have a way for the public/businesses to register their own bike racks and dockless system records city approved locations in their app. The bikeshare system or city could issue branding stickers to put on the racks, charge users if they don't return bike to a certified branded rack within a certain period. Not sure if any city is doing anything similar to this but seems like an obvious solution. Very cheap way to get into bikeshare but with some level of control. And it would encourage businesses to add bike racks.

earthling wrote:Dockless could work with some structure, such as using designated bike racks issued a city permit. The City could have a way for the public/businesses to register their own bike racks and dockless system records city approved locations in their app. The bikeshare system or city could issue branding stickers to put on the racks, charge users if they don't return bike to a certified branded rack within a certain period. Not sure if any city is doing anything similar to this but seems like an obvious solution. Very cheap way to get into bikeshare but with some level of control. And it would encourage businesses to add bike racks.

The problem is there's no way for someone to be certain the bike wasn't in the rack without it being the dock style that can read the bike from the stand. Putting a dockless bike 1 foot away from the rack would be registered as the same as pushing it forward another foot and you'll still have lazy people not using the rack. The reason the docks work is it puts a financial penalty to not taking the action of putting the bike back.

There has to be a middle ground because dock vs rack comes down to looking for assurance it's parked properly. I would imagine we're in a financial problem right now where adding docks are super expensive and bike share systems would rather buy more bikes that make them money. So there needs to be an incentive model that gets businesses to buy docks or a technological solution that brings the cost down. I could see both working.

1. free advertising for a business subsidizing docks is already done. Clearly doesn't work well enough to grow a system a lot

2. I kind of picture moving away from docks and towards a perimeter design with sensors.
Put in the post for renting bikes with the card reader and solar panel at stations. Build into in the bottom side of the frame of each bike a low power contactless transmitter. Then you paint the concrete where you bike station is, and much like the car light sensors you put an antenna loop in the concrete around this that has a field powers the bike's card and reads it. When the bike passes over the line it registers as returned and when it passes the other way it registers as checked out. Card reader systems can be quite fast if it can queue up cards for processing. Only quirk is making the reader and card work from the distance to the bike's frame, they're usually much closer.

You remove the need for the actual docks, expanding or shifting a station will be much easier because you just make a new painted square and re-lay and embedded antenna. A large station won't be dramatically more expensive than a smaller one.

flyingember wrote:
The problem is there's no way for someone to be certain the bike wasn't in the rack without it being the dock style that can read the bike from the stand.

Dockless bikes don't work that way. The smarts are in the bike, not the station so dumb racks can be used. The bikes have GPS built in and some use a QR or barcode to check out a bike. Dockless needs to have designated places, doesn't even have to be a rack, it could be a painted circle that is a designated location. A designated 'dumb rack' with branded permit would be more organized.

If the City issued permits for racks or designated locations, it would give Dockless systems much more structure yet still more flexibility and cheaper than station-based systems.

Struggle with the Dallas system. Issuing city permits to designated locations/racks could solve this problem...
https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2 ... ike-share/

earthling wrote:

flyingember wrote:
The problem is there's no way for someone to be certain the bike wasn't in the rack without it being the dock style that can read the bike from the stand.

Dockless bikes don't work that way. The smarts are in the bike, not the station so dumb racks can be used. The bikes have GPS built in and some use a QR or barcode to check out a bike. Dockless needs to have designated places, doesn't even have to be a rack, it could be a painted circle that is a designated location. A designated 'dumb rack' with branded permit would be more organized.

If the City issued permits for racks or designated locations, it would give Dockless systems much more structure yet still more flexibility and cheaper than station-based systems.

The problem isn't a lack of a box on the ground, it's that you're not going to solve the people issue with GPS. Even A-GPS isn't quite detailed enough to figure out that bike is two feet away from the rack against someone's garage door or sitting in the street.

You need the functional ability to force users to put their bikes into that standard rack or freestanding in a certain area, and that requires the user to get an incentive to pass over a line and leave their bike there. It could be financial in terms of a penalty or to gain free rides for returning the bike to a defined area so many times.

Thinking more, these sensors could be installed as a thin plastic strip over the concrete, allowing them to be added and removed with ease. A flat antenna + plastic barrier could be thin enough to walk on and barely notice. Would allow adding stations to be rather simple. Just need power and an internet connection for stations without a kiosk

^That could work as a more simplistic station-based method. There's one system that doesn't have GPS on the bike. It's just a barcode, basic texting radio or NFC and smartlock. The user scans barcode or uses NFC, it unlocks bike and then they use the GPS from user's smartphone app to check the drop off location. Probably has some weaknesses too but would imagine we see future systems getting simpler and simpler, not these expensive docking stations. But they do need some structure of having designated locations/racks such as with a city permit. The dropping bike off anywhere thing is turning out to be a mess.

At first I thought the bikes without stations might be a cool idea. But now, after having seen them in the DC area for several months, I'm not so sure. The bikes are left everywhere, on sidewalks, in yards, in alleys etc. They are also often on the ground fallen over, either knocked over or the wind knocks them over. I personally like the structure of having a lot of well stocked stations when I use bike share systems. You also don't go and hunt down a bike only to find it with a flat tire or something. With the stations you have plenty of bikes to choose from if some are not up to par. People are using them, especially in the touristy areas, but I do wonder if DC will keep them around especially if they start competing with capital bike share too much. DC has four or five pilot systems live right now, so they are everywhere, so maybe if they just have one, the bike clutter wouldn't be so bad.

...but what about the car clutter?

DaveKCMO wrote:...but what about the car clutter?

Good point. Like I said, I think once DC chooses one or two, it will get better. Right now, there are way more bikes then people need (and a lot of people use them).

A hybrid might be the best balance. Smarts in the bikes/app with city approved dedicated 'dumb' stations/racks. Would be a good balance of lowering cost, broader deployment yet giving it some structure. Those smart docking stations are expensive.

Looks like KC BCycle is exploring new technologies such as smart bikes at a bike rack anywhere rather than smart docking stations...
https://kc.bcycle.com/buzz/2017/12/07/r ... bike-share

If they go there, hopefully it will have some level of control compared to other dockless, such as required designated dumb bike racks.

At Kansas City BCycle, we think our sustainable and community-focused approach is the right one. We are prepared to evolve and meet the demands of our community this year and in the future. We will continue to expand and offer more convenient transportation solutions, including new technologies such as smart bikes that can be parked at any bike rack, anywhere. Our business practices will remain transparent and accessible, and we will continue to advocate for greater transportation diversity in the market that benefits everyone. And most of all we are grateful to be a part of and serve the Greater Kansas City community.

There are now 41 stations. Is the one at their office newest? At 32nd/Gilham...

https://kc.bcycle.com/station-map

earthling wrote:There are now 41 stations. Is the one at their office newest? At 32nd/Gilham...

https://kc.bcycle.com/station-map

They were up to 40x in August. Did the city hall area gain another one?

flyingember wrote:

earthling wrote:There are now 41 stations. Is the one at their office newest? At 32nd/Gilham...

https://kc.bcycle.com/station-map

They were up to 40x in August. Did the city hall area gain another one?

There is one at 12th/Oak now outside Jackson County Courthouse. I have heard that the 13th/Locust station will be going away at some point.

^Would hope that means moved somewhere else than removed from the system.

Some places that would seem to make sense...
Armour/Gilham or @Broadway or @Troost
Hospital Hill (they should sponsor a new station though)
Plaza Library-50s/Main stretch (this is turning into a decent 'restaurant row')
Is there any desire for other downtown locations? Seems decently covered for now.

This is a survey BikeKC just put out for the Gilham corridor via Bcycle website so that might be next focus...
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Gillham