Dublin Bikes [many] months on.

Stark

I was under the impression that all helmets had to meet a minimum safety standard with the difference between the more expensive versions being comfort and breathabilty.

Run_to_da_hills

Stark wrote: »

I was under the impression that all helmets had to meet a minimum safety standard with the difference between the more expensive versions being comfort and breathabilty.

"Comfort" boils down to better fitting. A cheap cycle helmet will feel more like a builders hard hat.

Capt'n Midnight

If you only intend to supply helmets with a retail price of €17, you might just as well have a helmet vending machine that sells them at €17 (or €20 or €15)

start the vending machine at the busiest station and add more as time goes on

or maybe a mad yoke where you put on a shower cap and then it sprays expanding foam over it, single use helmet, when you get to where you are going you pull the red strip to split it in the middle and drop in the bin at the station for recycling,

Carawaystick

why not try find some other personal protective equipment you can hire and cost that?
I doubt you'll find much as this stuff is too hard to check for defects after use.

Anyway the only helmet that'll protect you is a motorbike helmet- it'll prevent you from breathing enough to go fast...

seamus

Your main problem here is that in order to price them reasonably, you can't add much onto the cost of a trip on a DB.

If someone with a commuter card (€10/year) thought they needed a helmet, they'd bring one with them. So that's a market that's lost to you, I wouldn't waste your time. If someone thought a helmet was necessary for DB, they wouldn't buy a commuter card, they wouldn't even use the bikes because they'd be afraid.

Tourists will get a three-day card for €2. So your options here are:
1. Provide your own three-day card that allows commuters to take a helmet for 3 days
2. Provide a helment for 3 days
3. Charge per-trip for helmets

Now, no-one is going to pay you more than 50c for a helmet if you charge per-trip. You may even get away with €1. But if the bike is €2 for three days, you can forget about people paying €1 per trip.

Providing a helmet for 3 days isn't very practical. Helmets are more easily lost than bikes are and you have a much greater chance of a helmet being damaged if someone is carrying it around in their hand, dropping it on the floor underneath their cafe table, etc.

So a three-day card is clearly the way to go. They pick up a helmet at a DB station and drop it off with the bike. You may get away with charging a fiver for those three days, but you'll only get people who want a helmet. You need to encourage people to just take the helmet with the bike as if it was normal - whether they use it or not, you don't care. So another €2 for a three-day card seems reasonable.

You'll probably even find that tourists will buy the 3-day card, use a helmet once and then never bother again. Win-win for you, you've scored €2 without having to supply a helmet for 3 days.

Now comes your market planning. How many DB rentals are there? Remember that we're ignoring long-term subscribers - they don't want helmets. If you manage to get them to rent your helmets, consider that a bonus.

According to dublinbikes, there have been 306,000 rentals in the first 135 days of the scheme. There were also 25,000 long-term subscribers. If you say that every long-term subscriber took 6 journeys (3 return journeys, seems reasonable), then that's 150,000 rentals where you can't make any money. So the other 150,000 rentals were short-term. So let's say that on average, someone with a 3-day card will make 6 journeys in those 3 days: one return journery per day.

That's 25,000 potential helmet renters in 135 days or 185 per day. You could generously estimate that you might convince half of these people to subscribe to your helmets per day, which means that your helmet scheme @ €2 per helmet would make €185/day. Which is about €66k/year.

Not bad money. In theory. But consider that you would keep 10 helmets at each station, and you would need to replace your entire helmet fleet every 6 months for there to be any safety credibilty in it. So that's 400 helmets @ €17 each x 2 = €13,600/year.

Ignoring setup costs and assuming that the stations are unmanned, you would still need a number of people to go from station to station, checking up on the helmets and making sure there are enough helmets.

So each station needs to be visited 3 times a day - morning, afternoon and evening. It takes five minutes to get from station to station and you'd spend five minutes at each station. So that 10 mins x 120 visits = 1200 mins or 20 hours. That's work for 3 people per day. At minimum wage, that's €173/day or roughly €45k/year, and €46k after employer's PRSI.

So after your staff and helmet costs, you're left with just over €6k/year. But you still have rent, insurance and electricity costs to pay after that.

So, no, it'll never work.

Stark

Can you do my homework for me as well?

Ekaterina

@seamus

Hi,

I do not claim the idea being viable yet, but I have to disagree with some of your points:

1. 25,000 subsribers are actually ~17,500 with annual card & rest ~7,500 = 3-day-ticket purchases (as "dublinbikes has 438 Long Term subscribers per station")
2. annual subscribers can roughly be devided into 4 groups:
- helmet-never-wearers
- helmet-wearers-but-not-on-db-as-hasstle-to-bring-with
- helmet-wearers-who-bring-their-helmets-with-them
- helmet-not-owing-db-users-who-welcome-rental-helmets
and according to our face-to-face survey just under 75% of all db users would prefer to wear a helmet when on db, of which 40-45% would even pay for it some 50 cents per hour & 30-35% woudn't not pay, but would wear a helmet if it was included into db scheme for free). So, the annual subscribers are definitely not a lost market. So, this cuts out all the middle part of the estimated calculations... My calculations give me roughly 250,000 p.a., excl. advertising income as we were not able to get any "hypotetical yes's" from potential advirtisers (got one "no" & many non-respondents).

a) ~3500 journey per day, ~50% over 15 mins (hypotetical free ride interval for helmets), ~40% of users pay for helmet = 3500*50%*45%*0.5euro*365days= 127,750
b) ~21000 annual subscribers by now, ~45% willing to subscribe for a year for helmets, say for 5euro = 21000*5=105,000
c) ~15000 of 3-day-tickets per year, @ 1 euro subscription = 15,000
d) advertising income - ?
Total: ~250,000 euro p.a. - which I am still not sure would be enough to make the whole thing viable... Plus, actually think that people easier say that they would pay than they actually pay in reality, so the figures from the survey might need to be discounted for that as well...

3. "But you still have rent, insurance and electricity costs to pay after that." - what am I renting & where do I pay for electricity? Do you think, I would need an office? Nonono, a moobile phone is enough to function as a hotline, in my understanding. And as for the terminals - the bootstrapping via "hypotetical" cooperation with DCC has to be achieved (however, the DCC db person is on holidays and we could not get any "hypotetical" response on this issue)...

Cheers guys, going to the professor tomorrow to consult if a proven non-viability of the project would be assessed with same marks as proven viability Then will see what is easier to prove

As I said before, not sure about anythink & will see, what professor will say tomorrow (actually, already today).

Ekaterina

Stark wrote: »

Can you do my homework for me as well?

I am doing my homework myself. And what I am doing here is called "market research" which is part of the afore mentioned homework. And I am very grateful for all your participation, but nobody has a right to accuse me of not doing my homework: I have proven a responsible student through studies at 3 different universities in 3 different countries in 3 different languages and being among the best in each of them.

Thanks and sorry.

bk

Ekaterina wrote: »

Thanks and sorry.

No need to be sorry or explain yourself, Stark was just joking.

Let us know how it goes with your professor.

Sandraf

Hi

I haven't got around to using these bikes yet but I have seen lots of them in use around town.

Can someone tell me is there a notice when you go to get a bike saying feel totally free to ignore the rules of the road ?????

I've seen cyclists constantly on one way streets / on tracks / on footpaths / going through lights both on the road and on the luas tracks / on pedestrian areas ?? Whats going on ? Can nobody police these offenders ? How about on the spot fines ?

And don't get me started on helmets!.

Any thoughts ?

markpb

Sandraf wrote: »

And don't get me started on helmets!.

You're right - don't get started.

Run_to_da_hills

Sandraf wrote: »

Hi

I haven't got around to using these bikes yet but I have seen lots of them in use around town.

Can someone tell me is there a notice when you go to get a bike saying feel totally free to ignore the rules of the road ?????

I've seen cyclists constantly on one way streets / on tracks / on footpaths / going through lights both on the road and on the luas tracks / on pedestrian areas ?? Whats going on ? Can nobody police these offenders ? How about on the spot fines ?

And don't get me started on helmets!.

Any thoughts ?

I believe the Gardai were instructed to keep a blind eye in Dublin Bikes so as not to put people off using them.

Cookie_Monster

Sandraf wrote: »

And don't get me started on helmets!.

what about them? There is no legal requirement to wear them, and rightly so.

Capt'n Midnight

Sandraf wrote: »

Can someone tell me is there a notice when you go to get a bike saying feel totally free to ignore the rules of the road ?????

I've posted a link earlier from the NRA which showed that in free flowing traffic 99% of motorists broke the speed limit.

Don't get me started on taxi's (esp. indicators) and white van men (bus lanes) .

Around Thomas St. - St James the Luas shares lanes with other traffic.

dolliemix

Sandraf wrote: »

Hi



Can someone tell me is there a notice when you go to get a bike saying feel totally free to ignore the rules of the road ?????

?

Yes. A big flashing one in yellow of course

ollaetta

Sandraf wrote: »

Can someone tell me is there a notice when you go to get a bike saying feel totally free to ignore the rules of the road ?????

I've seen cyclists constantly on one way streets / on tracks / on footpaths / going through lights both on the road and on the luas tracks / on pedestrian areas ?? Whats going on ? Can nobody police these offenders ? How about on the spot fines ? Any thoughts ?

I used to wonder if users of these bikes breaking rules stood out because of the distinctive bikes but there is no doubt that they are way worse than regular cyclists. Bad and all as many everyday cyclists are they usually have some idea of how to cycle in this city (whether they do so or not is another matter) but most of the bike schemers are completely lawless and a danger to themselves and others. I still shudder at the thought of the one I saw wobbling between two lanes of moving traffic down near the Four Courts.

dolliemix

ollaetta wrote: »

I used to wonder if users of these bikes breaking rules stood out because of the distinctive bikes but there is no doubt that they are way worse than regular cyclists. Bad and all as many everyday cyclists are they usually have some idea of how to cycle in this city (whether they do so or not is another matter) but most of the bike schemers are completely lawless and a danger to themselves and others. I still shudder at the thought of the one I saw wobbling between two lanes of moving traffic down near the Four Courts.

Really?

I find this hard to believe to be honest. The media were out initially trying to make dublin bikes into another e voting story i.e waste of money


Surely if most of the db cyclists were as bad as you say I'd have heard of more accidents etc.

Carawaystick

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I've posted a link earlier from the NRA which showed that in free flowing traffic 99% of motorists broke the speed limit.

What locations in Dublin City is the nra data from? cos we'd all like to know where the free flowing trafic is.

Stark

Traffic generally flows fairly freely outside peak times. It's certainly been my experience when driving through the city that the vast majority of the traffic moves faster than 50km/hr when it's clear road ahead.

Carawaystick

would traffic average 50kmh over a distance of 3km or so through the city centre? Or does it just race from one red light to the next?

Stark

The speed limits are maximum speed limits, not average speed limits.

Capt'n Midnight

Carawaystick wrote: »

What locations in Dublin City is the nra data from? cos we'd all like to know where the free flowing trafic is.

It's not where, it's when.


http://www.nra.ie/News/PressReleases...t,2565,en.html

Urban Arterial Roads :

Surveys conducted before peak morning traffic conditions found that :

* The average free speed of cars within the 30 mph zone is 45 mph.
* 99% of cars exceeded the 30 mph limit.
* 72% were travelling in excess of 40 mph in the 30 mile zone

Run_to_da_hills

I noticed several drop off points are locked out, one off Christ Church with no bicycles. This would pose a problem of over crowding at other drop off points.
Ormond Quay, Exchequer St and Dame st were all full Saturday night, I had to do quite a bit of cycling and waiting around to drop one off.

Maybe they should cull some of the bikes until the end of the festivities to prevent overcrowding at the remaining drop off points..

Capt'n Midnight

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Maybe they should cull some of the bikes until the end of the festivities to prevent overcrowding at the remaining drop off points..

Or maybe they should move more bikes ?


if someone wanted to invest in software DB would know from your history what stations you normally visit and could highlight if your top 5 were full when you go to rent a bike , they could also suggest alternatives at the same time

Poster King

The iPhone App for the bikes, A Bike Now, is still crap as ever and was giving misleading information on Saturday. It told me that there were 11 bikes at my local bike stand, but when I got there a few minutes later there weren't any, yet the App still said 11 available. This was on Saturday when I was trying to get across town for the game in Croker. I also noticed that the stands at Merrion Square are blocked off, but this is not reflected in the App. They really need to sort this software out. I believe the App that Fusio created, that JC Decaux later banned, was brilliant.

fonkalei

I'm a huge fan. I only have 2 gripes... the bays get empty/full quite often depending on the time of day. Maybe more bikes in the bays or more bike bays would help.

Gripe #2 Cyclin in Dublin can get quite dangerous... never mind the roads not being great for cyclin but the drivers are atrocious. This mindset needs to change. We need better cycle lanes.

The world would be such a better place with less cars on the road!


But apart from that, I'm so glad we have such a great affordable scheme at our disposal.

ArmaniJeanss

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

I noticed several drop off points are locked out, one off Christ Church with no bicycles. This would pose a problem of over crowding at other drop off points.
Ormond Quay, Exchequer St and Dame st were all full Saturday night, I had to do quite a bit of cycling and waiting around to drop one off.

Maybe they should cull some of the bikes until the end of the festivities to prevent overcrowding at the remaining drop off points..

Same tonight.
I understand why they are doing it, but they made a bit of a mess of the machines. The closed station machines just show a permament message saying this machine and various other ones (which it names) are closed.

It would be so much better if the machines were just treating it as a normal 'full station' scenario, and telling us the locations of empty slots and available bikes like they normally do. Telling us what other stations are closed is not that helpful at all.

Run_to_da_hills

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

Same tonight.
I understand why they are doing it, but they made a bit of a mess of the machines. The closed station machines just show a permament message saying this machine and various other ones (which it names) are closed.

It would be so much better if the machines were just treating it as a normal 'full station' scenario, and telling us the locations of empty slots and available bikes like they normally do. Telling us what other stations are closed is not that helpful at all.

One beside Central Bank was out of service today, ended up dropping it off at the end of Clare St and walking back. :mad:

delta_bravo

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

One beside Central Bank was out of service today, ended up dropping it off at the end of Clare St and walking back. :mad:

http://www.dublinbikes.ie/Magazine/News/St-Patrick-s-Festival-station-restrictions

Oliver1985

More Bikes for Dublin

http://www.dublincity.ie/Press/PressReleases/pressreleasesapril2010/Pages/dublinbikesgearinguptoexpandcapacity.aspx