Velib like bicycle rental kiosks are being constructed in Dublin

Jawgap

I deal with FoI requests all the time, and as soon as someone starts invoking the various exemptions to avoid the release of information that immediately sets my spider senses tingling.

Generally, in my experience, when people don't want information released it's because it's poltically embarassing to the organisation or embarassing to the politician / minister responsible for the organisation.

They then try to hang a refusal to release on one of the exemptions - especially as information wants to be free!

Secondly, they are our (the public's) streets and roads and as such they are administered on a trust basis by the City Council, therefore they should tell us what's in the deal - if it's such a good deal why not let us in on what's in it?

Finally, the city officials who signed this deal should have a look at City Hall next time they're over there and remember why SPQH was engraved on it! They are here for our convenience, not the other way around.

Chips Lovell

markpb wrote: »

I don't know why but I've seen webcasts of several council meetings where the councillors were asking the city manager for information about the scheme but he refused to release it because it was commercially sensitive. In particular, JCD did not want it known because they were negotiating with at least one other GDA local authority about a similar scheme and didn't want their deal with DCC to affect that.

There's the explanation right there.

markpb wrote: »

In this case, the permanent staff signed the contract but refused to disclose it's details to the elected officials who should be responsible for it.

Councillors have relatively limited powers (although that may change when Dublin gets an elected mayor). They pass bye-laws, vote on development plans and approve budgets. That's about it. They are not responsible for every single spending decision or commercial deal conducted by the council.

Jawgap

eightyfish wrote: »

Ah, so... you don't think the scheme is a good deal because you, by default, don't trust the politicians? Fantastic. That's a solid argument against the bike scheme if I ever heard one.

Absolutely - all politicians deserve not to be trusted until they prove themselves.

Maybe I should modify that position, after all the elected representatives have a proud and glorious history in this country of putting the public interest ahead of their own and their party's.

In fact I can't really think of any examples where our politicians have concluded deals that have left the public without a chair when the music stopped..........can you?

ROK ON

Jawgap wrote: »

Absolutely - all politicians deserve not to be trusted until they prove themselves.

Maybe I should modify that position, after all the elected representatives have a proud and glorious history in this country of putting the public interest ahead of their own and their party's.

In fact I can't really think of any examples where our politicians have concluded deals that have left the public without a chair when the music stopped..........can you?

I can think of three.
Dr Noel Browne on TB vacination and health in general
Donagh O'Malley on frre education
Alan Dukes for his patriotic act in terms of supporting Ray mcSharry's budgets (a la Tallaght strategy)

1 Labour, 1 FF, 1 Fine Gael.

I am pretty sure there are others.

Jawgap

ROK ON wrote: »

I can think of three.
Dr Noel Browne on TB vacination and health in general
Donagh O'Malley on frre education
Alan Dukes for his patriotic act in terms of supporting Ray mcSharry's budgets (a la Tallaght strategy)

1 Labour, 1 FF, 1 Fine Gael.

I am pretty sure there are others.

I'd happily add to the list - Garret Fitzgerald, Richard Bruton, Pat Rabitte, Lemass and even Haughey (for his taxation policies, standing up to the farmers and some of his social policies).

I'd also add Tony Gregory and Joe Higgins - I'd never vote for either of them but I'd respect them as men of integrity.

The problem is they are all exceptional individuals and for everyone of those there is how many bogey politicians? For every Browne, Dukes or Higgins, there's at least 10 O'Rourkes, Harneys, and Lawlors.

Secondly, they are national politicians - where's the local politicians?

Is there any local politician you would trust or believe if they said "Sorry, we can't tell you the details, but it's a good deal for the city"?

maninasia

el tonto wrote: »

There's the explanation right there.



Councillors have relatively limited powers (although that may change when Dublin gets an elected mayor). They pass bye-laws, vote on development plans and approve budgets. That's about it. They are not responsible for every single spending decision or commercial deal conducted by the council.

What, because a commercial supplier doesn't want their other clients to get an inkling of the pricing involved DCC should follow their rules...what tosh.

SerialComplaint

maninasia wrote: »

What, because a commercial supplier doesn't want their other clients to get an inkling of the pricing involved DCC should follow their rules...what tosh.

Indeed - particularly when the other clients are in fact, different branches of the same organisation (i.e. the Govt).

dumac

Some figures from today's Londing Times:

• 23,000 vélibs on the streets of Paris
• 8,000 have been stolen
• another 8,000 have been damaged beyond repair

More here

kona

dumac wrote: »

Some figures from today's Londing Times:

• 23,000 vélibs on the streets of Paris
• 8,000 have been stolen
• another 8,000 have been damaged beyond repair

More here

dear god , I thought this thread was dead.

wrafter

Factors important to operation of system:

Weather: Irish weather is the pits. Rain is not conducive to cycling. Additionally bicycles may rust when left out in wind/rain.

Weather will affect usage figures significantly depending on the weather of the day (will service vehicle support be flexible enough to respond?). In Barcelona, the Bicing system is unusable on sunny days near coastal areas, with 45 minute queues to return bicycles the norm.

Other public bicycle systems haven't yet resolved the issue of users being charged additional monies for keeping their bicycles past the alloted 30 minutes, through no fault of their own (ie no space to return bicycle)

Vandalism: There tends to be a lot of vandalism in Dublin, stuff gets broken because it can be broken. I foresee warped tires, burned bicycle units, twisted handlebar, broken spokes, bent saddles, punctured tires, broken lights, broken bells. You name it.

Call centre quality: First, will the number be a free phone number? Why? Because if you're going to use this service, it's probably you're going to be ringing it a lot. (Recommendation: always carry mobile when using system)

Stuff that can go wrong, necessitating a call to call centre:

Bicycle returned, but not registered as returned by system, or otherwise stuck in the stand.

Bicycle station full, need to know where next nearest station is.

Bicycle station full, no station nearby with space. What to do?

Will service call centre be open until 12.30am... and beyond? Remember, you can take a bicycle at 12.29am if you want, and keep it for say three hours...

Service vehicles: some stations will be more popular than others; certain stations will be more popular at certain times than others; certain stations will be more popular drop-off stations than pick-up stations (and visaversa). Service vehicles will be important to success of project. (I wonder if their usage will use more co2 than that saved by those who cycle?) Will there be enough service vehicles? Will there be enough manpower attribute to the task? Service vehicles will likely have trailers attached to them, for capacity, I foresee difficulties in places like Exchequer Street, which is narrow, where there is no space provided for a service vehicle to stop for the required 2 or 3 minutes to pick up surplus bicycles.

Cards: Will user cards have user's name on them? They don't in other cities. Consider two people in same household interswapping cards without knowing whose is whose... and when a problem happens, and call is put into callcentre, there's a 50% chance the card displays the number of the wrong person. (This might sound petty, but it's a real problem in other cities) In Paris they recommend putting a coloured sticker on your card so you can identify it as yours.

Card lost, need to replace, how... (There'll need to be a physical office dealing with face-to-face enquiries. Anyone know where this'll be?)

Identification of damaged bicycles: some bicycles can be identified as damaged easily (bent wheel or missing saddle). Others not so. It's hard to identify a partially flat tire until you sit on it; it's harder to identify a wheel which isn't spinning and is rubbing against frame without picking it up to spin the wheel; broken gears or brakes can't be identified unless bicycle is cycled.
Velib and Bicing are failing in this, meaning there may be X bicycles in the system, but there's only X minus Y actually usable.

kenmc

Here we go again......

wrafter wrote: »

Weather: Irish weather is the pits. Rain is not conducive to cycling. Additionally bicycles may rust when left out in wind/rain.

bullsh t

Vandalism: There tends to be a lot of vandalism in Dublin, stuff gets broken because it can be broken. I foresee warped tires, burned bicycle units, twisted handlebar, broken spokes, bent saddles, punctured tires, broken lights, broken bells. You name it.

And how is this any different to having your own bike wrecked whilst parked in town? Presumably there will be video cameras on the bikes in the stands though, and since the council and a large corporation has a vested interest for once, maybe something will be done to prevent it.

Bicycle returned, but not registered as returned by system, or otherwise stuck in the stand.

The system has been deployed in oodles of cities already, I'd hazard a guess that they have this one sorted, or procedures to deal with it.

Bicycle station full, need to know where next nearest station is.

Bicycle station full, no station nearby with space. What to do?

the stations are all closely positioned, chances of them all being full are slim, especially since (apparently) the bikes will all be stolen in the first 20 minutes of the scheme being operational anyway.

Identification of damaged bicycles: some bicycles can be identified as damaged easily (bent wheel or missing saddle). Others not so. It's hard to identify a partially flat tire until you sit on it; it's harder to identify a wheel which isn't spinning and is rubbing against frame without picking it up to spin the wheel; broken gears or brakes can't be identified unless bicycle is cycled.
Velib and Bicing are failing in this, meaning there may be X bicycles in the system, but there's only X minus Y actually usable.

In Paris at least, if a bike is broken it's saddle is usually reversed by the user who spots it as being broken, to identify it.

mmclo

Will they be covered! So far looks like they won't be. It rains less than people think but that's when your need two windows a day to commute, currently it is raining most days but at different times in showers which will impact on this scheme I suspect

Raising the profile of cycling is good but most of the bikes will be used by tourists. At this cost something to promote commuting would have been better value and have made more of an impact on congestion, the environment and public health in my view.

Lumen

kenmc wrote: »

bullsh t

With a threshold of 1mm over the 22 minute journey, which would be classified as moderate rainfall, the cyclist gets wet on average on only 0.6% of trips in the morning and on 0.4% in the evening”

My statistics brain isn't working, but that suggests that the chance of experiencing moderate rainfall on a given commuting day is less than 1%, or 2-3 days a year.

That is wildly out of kilter with my own experiences. ISTR I've got significantly wet (soggy socks and shorts) at least 7 days in the last fortnight alone.

blorg

Lumen wrote: »

My statistics brain isn't working, but that suggests that the chance of experiencing moderate rainfall on a given commuting day is less than 1%, or 2-3 days a year.

No, it is the chance of experiencing moderate rainfall during the average 22 minutes of their commute. It could rain at other times during the day.

That is wildly out of kilter with my own experiences. ISTR I've got significantly wet (soggy socks and shorts) at least 7 days in the last fortnight alone.

You would cycle more than 22 minutes twice a day- the more you cycle the higher the chance you are going to get hit with rain.

wrafter

kenmc wrote: »

And how is this any different to having your own bike wrecked whilst parked in town? Presumably there will be video cameras on the bikes in the stands though, and since the council and a large corporation has a vested interest for once, maybe something will be done to prevent it.

I doubt there will be cameras watching them, but who knows. Don't confuse these bikes for normal bikes: these are public bikes, they have nice parking facilities; they are expected to look well all of which makes them probable trophy-targets. Standing out as they will, will inevitably make them more attractive than my eight year old bike chained against the railing.

kenmc wrote: »

The system has been deployed in oodles of cities already, I'd hazard a guess that they have this one sorted, or procedures to deal with it.

This is not correct. It will be a problem. Wait.

kenmc wrote: »

the stations are all closely positioned, chances of them all being full are slim, especially since (apparently) the bikes will all be stolen in the first 20 minutes of the scheme being operational anyway.

This is not correct either. Proximity to each other will only have a limited effect on space availability, depending on the time / day / weather / location and most important, how efficient the service vehicles are. Service vehicles are key to this whole operation.

kenmc wrote: »

In Paris at least, if a bike is broken it's saddle is usually reversed by the user who spots it as being broken, to identify it.

That's a fine idea. But it's not the case in Barcelona. Approx 50% of all available bicycles in the Barcelona system are available because no one wants them (ie they're broken). [Reversed saddle is a nice idea mind you.]

@Others - I didn't wish to distract from my other points (notably call centre, and service vehicles) by leading with a point about weather (which is of least concern to me). So my bad.

blorg

@wrafter- why are you focusing just on the potential pitfalls?

In Paris:

Velib Annual Poll 2008 wrote:

94% are satisfied with the service
97% would recommend it to a friend
96% say it gives a positive image of Paris
94% say it makes Paris more pleasant

You are right, it will clearly be a disaster.

Lumen

blorg wrote: »

No, it is the chance of experiencing moderate rainfall during the average 22 minutes of their commute. It could rain at other times during the day.

You would cycle more than 22 minutes twice a day- the more you cycle the higher the chance you are going to get hit with rain.

Well I do about 35 minutes twice a day, which isn't massively more. There are whole weeks where it's almost impossible to get to work and back without getting wet, in my own experience.

The Velib bikes presumably have mudguards, which would obviously help a bit with surface water when it's not actually raining, but I think the idea that someone who cycles 22 minutes twice a day will only get wet 2-3 days a year in Dublin is hugely misleading and leads to some inadvisable bicycle purchases (and idiot Freds using carbon racers to commute).

blorg

Does the full quote help:

“Rainfall of 0.5mm per hour would typically be viewed as drizzle/very light rain. Using this low rainfall threshold (i.e. cumulative rainfall of 0.2mm on the 22 minute journey) the cyclist would have got wet on only 5% of trips in the morning and on 4% of trips in the evening. When higher rainfall thresholds are applied the proportion of trips where the cyclist gets wet declines very dramatically. With a threshold of 1mm over the 22 minute journey, which would be classified as moderate rainfall, the cyclist gets wet on average on only 0.6% of trips in the morning and on 0.4% in the evening”

My commute is around the 22 minute mark and 4-5% might be about right to get wet to be honest.

Lumen

blorg wrote: »

My commute is around the 22 minute mark and 4-5% might be about right to get wet to be honest.

Splendid. Se we're agreed that 0.6%/0.4% are completely misleading as far as "chances of getting wet" are concerned. So why do they quote them as part of a practical discussion about cycling?

blue chuzzle

Lumen wrote: »

(and idiot Freds using carbon racers to commute).

HEY! watch it. :P

blorg

Lumen wrote: »

Splendid. Se we're agreed that 0.6%/0.4% are completely misleading as far as "chances of getting wet" are concerned. So why do they quote them as part of a practical discussion about cycling?

Chances of getting seriously wet I imagine, there is quite a difference between light drizzle and a downpour. It is very rare indeed that I get so wet as to make a cycle miserable but it certainly happens. I think the full quote is clear enough, you were the one who selectively quoted from it.

Lumen

blorg wrote: »

Chances of getting seriously wet I imagine, there is quite a difference between light drizzle and a downpour. It is very rare indeed that I get so wet as to make a cycle miserable but it certainly happens. I think the full quote is clear enough, you were the one who selectively quoted from it.

Pah. The full quote just demonstrates that you can "prove" anything with statistics.

I'm actually typing this whilst wearing a pair of Goretex shorts that arrived today. That's how much I haven't enjoyed the 0.4-0.6% chance of getting moderately wet in the last couple of weeks. :pac:

blorg

I think we could maybe agree that it actually rains less on a commuting cyclist than a typical non-cycling commuter imagine it does...

Lumen

blorg wrote: »

I think we could maybe agree that it actually rains less on a commuting cyclist than a typical non-cycling commuter imagine it does...

I have no idea, but I've started a spreadsheet and will report back in 365 days when I have some real data.

kenmc

wrafter wrote: »

I doubt there will be cameras watching them, but who knows. Don't confuse these bikes for normal bikes: these are public bikes, they have nice parking facilities; they are expected to look well all of which makes them probable trophy-targets. Standing out as they will, will inevitably make them more attractive than my eight year old bike chained against the railing.



This is not correct. It will be a problem. Wait.



This is not correct either. Proximity to each other will only have a limited effect on space availability, depending on the time / day / weather / location and most important, how efficient the service vehicles are. Service vehicles are key to this whole operation.



That's a fine idea. But it's not the case in Barcelona. Approx 50% of all available bicycles in the Barcelona system are available because no one wants them (ie they're broken). [Reversed saddle is a nice idea mind you.]

@Others - I didn't wish to distract from my other points (notably call centre, and service vehicles) by leading with a point about weather (which is of least concern to me). So my bad.

I dunno. For some reason I prefer to wait and see how it pans out before criticising it. Call me old fashioned, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
Course if it's going to be that much of a disaster I suppose it means you won't bother signing up for the scheme, thus increasing my chances of getting a bike when I need one by a tiny percentage, so "thanks", I guess..

kona

why the hell are the same points being argued?

there is like 20 odd pages!

maninasia

Lumen wrote: »

I have no idea, but I've started a spreadsheet and will report back in 365 days when I have some real data.

I think the point is you can get a bus or walk if you don't want to use the bike on a rainy day, just like any cyclist~!

wrafter

blorg wrote: »

@wrafter- why are you focusing just on the potential pitfalls?

Does anyone come onto boards and promote discussion by wooing over something?

kona wrote: »

why the hell are the same points being argued?

there is like 20 odd pages!

It's the first time for service vehicles and call centres to be raised.

Additionally, I have first hand experience in using Barcelona's bicing for 18+ months. I've seen the high's and lows. The high's are the freedom it gives; the move from having few bicycle lanes at the outset to being well catered for now; the fitness aspect I guess (though I don't cycle frequently enough to benefit greatly (I cycle about three times a week)).

The lows: well, the lows outweigh it really. I've had nights-out spoiled where when you get to your destination there's no place to put your bicycle, there's a queue of four people, so you go to the next station, at that station you find there are five places to park your bike, but all are broken, and there's a queue of three people. You stand around and wait. But because it's, you know, 9pm on a Thursday night, there are only people who want to drop-off, not return... by 10pm you're next in line, and you get to deposit your bike. Not only have you missed the comedy gig, or whatever you're going to... you've also had to pay a fine for keeping the bike more than 30 minutes... and you've been onto the call centre who haven't been able to help.

Then there's the experience of being given a bicycle, say number 23 which has no saddle, so you return it; only to be given 24, which has no chain, so you return it; to be given 25, which has no brakes... so you take it, because at least you can cycle it... each time note you have to walk to bike, pick it up, put it back, walk back to terminal and repeat.

Look, this begins to sound petty, but only when you experience this on an ongoing basis for 12 to 18 months, does it start to get a little too much.

Now, that said, the concept is beautiful. Dublin deserves the best. I really hope it gets it.

petethedrummer

wrafter wrote: »

Does anyone come onto boards and promote discussion by wooing over something?

If that something is made by Pinarello then yes, yes they do.

lukester

wrafter wrote: »

Look, this begins to sound petty, but only when you experience this on an ongoing basis for 12 to 18 months, does it start to get a little too much.

Interesting perspective- is it possible the Barcelona scheme is not as well managed as the Paris version?

On visits to both cities, my superficial iimpression was that Velib' in Paris is much
more popular than Bicing in Barcelona. Locals, tourists, all using the bikes.

I've only used Velib during the day on a short trip to Paris, but my brother spent a year there and only had good things to say about it. I don't know if he used it much in the evenings, will ask him.