Electric Bike-Share Program Coming to the US

December 06, 2007

Despite the fact that Asia and Europe seem gung-ho over the notion of citywide bike-sharing programs, the U.S. still lags behind. We are a car-loving country with people who guard their autonomy and worship the vehicles that give it to us.

This week on Discovery's News site, I wrote a piece about a foldable electric scooter being developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The idea is to make these scooters available to commuters at conveniently located, one-way rental racks. While researching the piece, I was pleased to find out that there is one bike-share project being implemented next fall at the University of Washington, Seattle. Forty bikes from Intrago will be distributed among four station located at the edge of campus and made available to students, faculty and staff.

Bike-sharing is not a technology, but a transportation solution that could impact technology. For example, a lot of research is going into developing more fuel-efficient cars, but fuel-efficiency doesn't  solve congestion problems in urban areas. Electric bikes or scooters made available as part of city's mass transit plan could go a long way to preserving our autonomy while reducing pollution and traffic.

For more bike-sharing news and to see a world map of bike-sharing locations, see Paul DeMaio's blogspot.

Comments

[Retired Navy]

From the Discovery article:

Although DeMaio acknowledges the benefits of an electric scooter over a gas-powered one or even a car, he said that introducing a scooter might be more expensive than a bicycle. Furthermore, electric bikes tend to require more maintenance than pedal bikes, and they are heavier. Cities with bike-sharing programs must hire people and trucks to physically reallocate the distribution of bikes, as they tend to pile up in some locations versus others.

"With heavier vehicles, that means more energy is needed with trucks and vans to move these vehicles around from location to location," said DeMaio.

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Why not computerize the system and offer a "bounty" to move the scooters from a crowded area to where they are needed? The more a location needs scooters, the more its bounty increases. If it is 20 minutes from A to B, give them 25 minutes or the bounty starts reducing.

The bounty could be cash and/or credit for foodstuffs (or Amazon?). This would be attractive to the underemployed and the distribution of scooters would only require a handful of employees and a single van.

I can see potential problems but they would be overcome with RFID technology and preregistered online accounts.