I signed up as a Bird recharger.

[dmethvin]

Thanks for the interesting info! I was just reading about price increases in this article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2019/10/18/that-scooter-ride-is-going-cost-you-lot-more/

The per-mile costs listed above make it a bit difficult to reconcile with per-minute charges, but if a 10-minute trip averages 6mph (including stops at lights etc) that's  $1+10*0.39 = $4.90 at the new rates. At the old rates it would be $1+10*0.15 = $2.50. So the old revenue estimate there lines up pretty well with the article in Time. The new rates almost double their per-mile revenue but it sounds like they scared off customers, some of who went back to the bus at a flat $2 per ride.

 

Edited October 23, 2019 by dmethvin

[LanghamP]

3 hours ago, dmethvin said:

Thanks for the interesting info! I was just reading about price increases in this article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2019/10/18/that-scooter-ride-is-going-cost-you-lot-more/

The per-mile costs listed above make it a bit difficult to reconcile with per-minute charges, but if a 10-minute trip averages 6mph (including stops at lights etc) that's  $1+10*0.39 = $4.90 at the new rates. At the old rates it would be $1+10*0.15 = $2.50. So the old revenue estimate there lines up pretty well with the article in Time. The new rates almost double their per-mile revenue but it sounds like they scared off customers, some of who went back to the bus at a flat $2 per ride.

I'm a huge huge fan of rideshare eScooters, based upon my experience in just talking to users. Ludicrously, I'd swoop down on a just completed ride with my EUC, and get to talk to the rider. It must look out of science fiction...ride a scooter, finish, and a guy in an EUC shows up.

Now there were a lot of poorer guys, mostly younger, but some older, who could use the eScooters for free, as St Louis had some agreement with Bird and Lime to provide such service to people who didn't have credit cards. And talking to these guys, they just seemed incredibly grateful that they could have free and quick transportation to their jobs or wherever they were going. You could use public transportation, but then you're realistically looking at $10 per day to go both ways. 20 days of work means $200 per month. Yeah, that's cheaper than a car, but that's surprisingly expensive for public transportation.

In contrast to this $51,000,000 fiasco. You could subsidize an awful lot of eScooter rides with that government money. 

Maybe that's the logical and inevitable result. You ban private cars from city/urban areas, then subsidize "free" transportation via eScooters, eBikes, subways, and buses. Life will be harder especially during the winter, but that's money saved in the city's pocket if you don't have to subsidize parking (more land to tax).

 

[mike_bike_kite]

I found that very interesting too. Could you have some sort of wheeled trolley that could be pulled by the EUC? that way you could carry more at a time with less effort. I guess others would ignore the same escooters that need taking to the fix it place so perhaps you could do a similar run to pick up all those that need fixing again on the EUC. How do they adjust the payment for doing this - is it done automatically depending on how many people do the work at the current rate? I got into using normal hire bikes when I was in Paris for a while - if you were careful then it cost a couple of $ a day to cycle everywhere and it was a great way of seeing the city. I've since tried it in London where it's the same price but a bit more dangerous on the roads.

I quite liked the idea  of these things but we started to get a bunch of them "dumped" where people didn't want them - I found 2 ebikes in a bush on my local park and moved them back to the pavement but had to do this while both machines were screaming that they were being stolen. No doubt the person who lived in the house where these things were being put had just grown sick and tired of them being put in front of his house each day. I actually had a similar problem with a company similar to zip car - they'd managed to park their vehicle in such a way that neither my wife or my neighbour could park. The vehicle didn't move for nearly a week. I tried contacting the company via their web site but heard nothing back. I tried telephoning but the only number available was in a different country and I gave up after 3 attempts of trying to speak to someone who could A) speak English and B ) fix the issue. In the end I just demonstrated my unhappiness in other ways and the vehicle hasn't come back.

[RockyTop]

@LanghamP I missed this thread. 

Are you still changing? Is it still worth it? 

 

[RockyTop]

1 hour ago, mike_bike_kite said:

they'd managed to park their vehicle in such a way that neither my wife or my neighbour could park.

Was it not illegally parked then? I would have had it towed. 

[mike_bike_kite]

Unfortunately not. Most areas in London are a nightmare to park in but where we are, everyone road parks in front of their own house. We're an ordered lot down our road and it works well for everyone. Sadly the hire car was left in such a way that neither my wife or the neighbour could now park. If there was a dedicated bay for these vehicles in every neighbourhood then things would be fine - assuming it's in a neutral spot and not outside anyone's home. I did contact zip car when they did the same with one of their vehicles and suggested a better spot that wouldn't bother anyone - they actually acted on this advice. With Ubeeqo you couldn't even contact their company without ringing abroad.

[LanghamP]

30 minutes ago, RockyTop said:

@LanghamP I missed this thread. 

Are you still changing? Is it still worth it? 

I stopped doing the Bird scooters because during my 3 months or so Bird changed the rewards and obligations as to make it not worth it for me. If you don't have a pickup truck or a trailer and you're willing to double park (or have two people) then it might be somewhat worth it, especially if you're a careful driver with insurance, but even those people would lose quite a bit of money in the long run.

1. Bird rewards went from $7 to $3, while the battery capacity doubled. Sometimes you could find a $5 scooter, but those were invariably in places hard to get to. Whereas before you could grab a local scooter and recharge and release it within a few hours, towards the end I could only charge 3 scooters from overnight, and have to travel a distance to release them. I think I went from $50 per day for not much work to under $14 for a lot of hours of work.

2. The scooter speed limit went from 15 mph to under 4 mph, I think just 3.5, or the speed of a fast walker. Since you can't ride them on the sidewalk, this means you are essentially a pedestrian on the street. Now I usually had my wheel, but a lot of times I'd prefer to just run over there, and ride the scooter back, and that option was barred to me after Bird limited the top speed.

3. The places you could release Birds went from "all over" to just a few large transportation hubs. That is, rather than at each corner of a block the release points were just at tourist and metro places.

I think Bird was like Uber and Lyft, as the wages depressed when more people joined as chargers. Simple supply and demand. From observation, I'd guess towards the end much more than 95% of the scooters were serviced by pickup trucks and flatbed trailers. The Bird  business model evolved to huge trucks dropping off vast quantities of scooters outside of museums, urban malls, and train stations.

[RockyTop]

I hate to hear that. We were scheduled to get Bird last spring. They never showed up. Then they pulled out of several nearby cities. I was hoping everyone could benefit from them. 

[atdlzpae]

1 hour ago, LanghamP said:

The scooter speed limit went from 15 mph to under 4 mph, I think just 3.5, or the speed of a fast walker.

Does anybody use them?

[LanghamP]

32 minutes ago, atdlzpae said:

Does anybody use them?

The person who charges the scooter cannot exceed 4 mph. The normal speed of about 16 mph is untouched for customers. If you ever see a person on a scooter going about walking pace, chances are that he is a Bird charger.

[atdlzpae]

14 minutes ago, LanghamP said:

The person who charges the scooter cannot exceed 4 mph. The normal speed of about 16 mph is untouched for customers. If you ever see a person on a scooter going about walking pace, chances are that he is a Bird charger.

WTF? What's the rationale?

[mike_bike_kite]

 

10 hours ago, atdlzpae said:

WTF? What's the rationale?

I'd guess it stops people from becoming a Bird charger just so they can fully use the scooters for free. It also ensures the scooters are near to fully charged when dropped off.

 

12 hours ago, LanghamP said:

I stopped doing the Bird scooters because during my 3 months or so Bird changed the rewards and obligations as to make it not worth it for me.

I guess this is what happens when algorithms decide your pay. So is it back to the aluminium cans now?  

[ir_fuel]

If there is one thing I've learned from looking at our local market, it is that no ridesharing service (be it cars, bicycles, scooters,....) can survive without government funding.

They all keep operating at loss (Bird, Lime) or give up because they can't sustain those losses anymore ( a few rideshare eScooter companies already gave up here, a few car sharing companies have either gone bankrupt or stopped operations too). The only one that keeps on going is a docked bikesharing service called Villo, and that one only survives because of government funding.

It's the same with public transportation in our country. The only way to keep busses/trains/metros/trams afloat is by government funding. If they have to be self sufficient prices need to be tripled, and nobody will use it anymore.

 

[LanghamP]

3 hours ago, ir_fuel said:

there is one thing I've learned from looking at our local market, it is that no ridesharing service (be it cars, bicycles, scooters,....) can survive without government funding

The same situation occurs with private vehicles, except instead of tens of dollars per person per year (Kansas spends about 50 cents per year on public transportation) we spend tens of thousands per year for private vehicles.

Consider:

1. Cost of free public on street parking.

2. Giving money to car manufacturers. GM was given billions in 2009, while car factories are given money by local governments to build a factory locally.

3. Oil subsidies.

4. Infrastructure road projects. A local triple overpass than drivers don't use cost about 400,000,000 dollars,or about 80,000 dollars per person who should use it but doesn't.

So what's the odd deal with so many local cities subsidizing rideshare companies? The answer is depressingly simple: to cost to the local government for you to operate on their streets is so great that if they can get just ten percent (or much less) of people out of their cars, the cost savings pays for that "public" transportation. Let's do the math. It's about, or at least $10,000 per year to adequately maintain a street in front of a house, so 1/10 of 10,000 is the cost savings you get if you can get 1 of 10 people out of their cars. Since an eScooter cost about $600, it follows the local government could just buy you two eScooters if you gave up your car*.

It is because of the above that local governments are so keen on rideshares and public transportation.

Does it seem odd so many (or most) municipalities now recommend "free" public transportation? It's because free public transportation is cheaper than maintaining streets and roads for all the cars everybody has!

*If car tax and registration is only a few hundred per year, where does the rest of the money come from? The answer is Federal grants and local sales taxes.

 

[mike_bike_kite]

This recent BBC article concerns electric bicycle hire companies. It appears that not everyone is happy having these things dumped outside their houses. It seems a lot of the bikes are getting vandalised making the cost of running these these businesses unviable. I really feel they'd do better having designated spots for these vehicles and then there'd be less backlash but hey ho.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50946871

 

[LanghamP]

6 hours ago, mike_bike_kite said:

This recent BBC article concerns electric bicycle hire companies. It appears that not everyone is happy having these things dumped outside their houses. It seems a lot of the bikes are getting vandalised making the cost of running these these businesses unviable. I really feel they'd do better having designated spots for these vehicles and then there'd be less backlash but hey ho.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50946871

 

Bike shares work if a few parking spots per edge of a block are taken away from cars and given to bike share docks.

https://www.curbed.com/2019/12/16/20864145/bike-share-citi-bike-jump-uber?silverid=%%RECIPIENT_ID%%

 

[ir_fuel]

On 12/31/2019 at 8:10 PM, LanghamP said:

The same situation occurs with private vehicles, except instead of tens of dollars per person per year (Kansas spends about 50 cents per year on public transportation) we spend tens of thousands per year for private vehicles.

Consider:

1. Cost of free public on street parking.

2. Giving money to car manufacturers. GM was given billions in 2009, while car factories are given money by local governments to build a factory locally.

3. Oil subsidies.

4. Infrastructure road projects. A local triple overpass than drivers don't use cost about 400,000,000 dollars,or about 80,000 dollars per person who should use it but doesn't.

Ok, and on the other side for my car I pay:

$1000 in road tax yearly

$2000 in insurance yearly (of which a part is just insurance tax)

70% of the price of fuel goes directly towards the government.

$2 - $4 / hour for on street parking (free? Hell no!)

21% VAT on all car-related costs (parts, service ...)

 

So I wouldn't call it "funding". 

[ir_fuel]

On 1/2/2020 at 4:19 PM, LanghamP said:

Bike shares work if a few parking spots per edge of a block are taken away from cars and given to bike share docks.

https://www.curbed.com/2019/12/16/20864145/bike-share-citi-bike-jump-uber?silverid=%%RECIPIENT_ID%%

 

No word about profitability, except for the one that works because it's being funded by the government.

Quote

LA’s Metro Bike is one of the only systems in the country that’s operated through the city’s transportation agencies (as a partnership between Metro and the Los Angeles Department of Transportation), meaning it’s managed and funded more like arm of the transit system.

 

[dmethvin]

57 minutes ago, ir_fuel said:

No word about profitability, except for the one that works because it's being funded by the government.

In the US, all of the shared-wheels startups are trying to find a path to profitability. It's likely many of them won't, but that's typical of all startups. They are competing against a transportation infrastructure that isn't friendly to them and has given priority to cars for more than 50 years. 

This idea that public transportation should be profitable is wrong. That is what killed the railroads in the US during the 1950s. They were private companies and were expected to be profitable while we built competing free interstates that cars and trucks could drive on. Yes, you pay for gas taxes and big trucks pay road taxes, but they don't come close to covering the cost of that road. In the 1970s when I-395 was built near the Pentagon in Virginia, it cost more than $100,000 per foot. A recent project to add one more tolled lane to the road cost $475 million. 

The government is still picking cars and roads as the winner of the transit lottery and ignoring the expansion of public transit because "People don't want it." Well of course, as long as you keep spending their money on roads and don't bill them the actual cost, they'll prefer to buy cars rather than be stuck on those same roads inside a bus. If you give them rail transit or dedicated bus lanes, the equation changes.

The $2,000 you pay for insurance is just that, insurance. It makes sense to protect yourself from loss of a $30,000+ vehicle that is easy to steal or damage. If you didn't own it you wouldn't need to pay for insurance. 

And the reason parking is so expensive is because in a city, all property is expensive. You're not paying a "tax" for parking, you're paying for the privilege of taking up expensive space. In my area, a one-bedroom apartment of 700 square feet is about $1,800 a month. That is the equivalent of about five parking spaces so you can start to see the cost of providing massive parking lots and garages as far as lost revenue. Local governments usually require large buildings to provide parking to tenants, which inevitably means the cost of the apartments is increased to subsidize the cost of the parking in the building that could have been turned into apartments.

[ir_fuel]

3 hours ago, dmethvin said:

The $2,000 you pay for insurance is just that, insurance. It makes sense to protect yourself from loss of a $30,000+ vehicle that is easy to steal or damage. If you didn't own it you wouldn't need to pay for insurance. 

No it's not just insurance. Part of that insurance also goes to the government as car insurance is taxed. That was my point.

3 hours ago, dmethvin said:

And the reason parking is so expensive is because in a city, all property is expensive.

I just pointed it out because @LanghamP was talking about the cost of providing free parking. Where I live we pay for parking.

[ir_fuel]

3 hours ago, dmethvin said:

In the US, all of the shared-wheels startups are trying to find a path to profitability. It's likely many of them won't, but that's typical of all startups. They are competing against a transportation infrastructure that isn't friendly to them and has given priority to cars for more than 50 years. 

This idea that public transportation should be profitable is wrong.

But all of this is besides the point.

My point (a couple of posts ago) is that these systems are simply not viable when ran as private companies. The only thing the link that was posted did is prove my point. Nowhere did I say that it should be profitable or that transportation should never be subsidised. The only issue is that it's run by private companies so it should be profitable of the company goes bankrupt. 

The problem is that without government intervention none of them will ever become profitable. Look at where there were price hikes. People already complain because it's nearly the same price to use an Uber than to use a rented scooter. And even then it's not profitable, so they should raise prices even more. People will just flock to Uber again and we'll end up with more cars on the road.

The only question here is: how will a government organise/subsidise this in a correct manner? 

[LanghamP]

5 hours ago, dmethvin said:

Yes, you pay for gas taxes and big trucks pay road taxes, but they don't come close to covering the cost of that road. In the 1970s when I-395 was built near the Pentagon in Virginia, it cost more than $100,000 per foot. A recent project to add one more tolled lane to the road cost $475 million. 

Often a city will bill homeowners a small fraction of the cost to maintain (not even to build) a street in front of the house.

https://www.wbay.com/content/news/Special-assessment-for-road-adds-42656-to-homeowners-bill-481124451.html

This is just one of many horror stories, but it's important to note most such homeowners are paying 1/3 or less of the true bill. It's notable that every single such story comes out to between the $8,000 to $32,000 per property that Strong Towns estimated some years ago.

Car owners are also property owners, but usually that incredible cost of paying $8,000-$16,000 every year is hidden from them. Most car owners hate bike lanes, love ultra wide roads, and think free parking is a right, but if they were billed the true cost of car ownership then I doubt they would favor car ownership because most people don't have an extra $20,000 per year for transportation.

Most people look at roads and parking as non-spaces, that is, space no one goes to but through in order to get somewhere else. However, whenever you build that road and the parking that goes with it, then that's land that can't be used to anything other than non-spaces. Not many people purposefully go to a $400,000,000 interstate exchange as tourist, they go through to somewhere else.

[LanghamP]

Here's an article about eScooter injuries and how impossible it is to get recourse if you get injured on their scooter.

https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2020/02/scooter-safety-laws-injuries-lawsuit-municipal-claims-board/606718/

I will say much more than half, maybe 80%, of eScooters I worked on had missing or faulty stem screws.

I would always screw them back in after using red Locktite, but the combination of solid tires, sidewalk vibration, and heavy crashes (they all had been crashed hard) breaks that Locktite as if it isn't even there.

I'd wager any person here using any eScooter will find loose and missing stem screws on most eScooters.