Dublinbikes Birthday?

mloc123

I see the stations all have balloons on them, are they a year old today?

snollup

Don't they grow up sooo quickly!

ED E

Yes they are. Was on the news, promoting the suburban rollout too.

milkycoffey

I really hope there are queen cakes in all the baskets! nom!:pac:

Creamy Goodness

i really hope the baskets contains a little booklet explaining what a one way street is and the difference between a footpath and a road to the majority of their users :pac:.

but yeh they are a year old this week sometime (if they aren't already) saw a tweet during the week - that i can't find now - that had some stats about them, remember thinking that's pretty impressive.

Lumen

Not a great day for me.

Had a dentists appointment at 08:30 off Grafton St. Got train to Connolly, walked to nearest DB location....no bikes. Had to walk instead, was 15 minutes late.

Left dentist, took a DB out for a tour of the city (scouting for new office). Looked OK on the stand, but front was punctured. Tried cycling on the rim but cornering wasn't safe. Had to stand around waiting for my account to unlock itself before I could get a new bike.

Tour done. Popped bike back to James St. No spaces. Cycled to Merrion Sq. No spaces. Waited for 10 mins to dock the damn bike. Another 15-20 minutes wasted.

A year on these cannot be described as teething problems. If I was a tourist or unemployed it would be fine, but on today's evidence the system isn't working well enough to be reliable for people who have to get places.

Limestone1

Has anyone renewed their card ? Doesn't seem to be anyway of doing it online .

Piercemeear

Limestone1 wrote: »

Has anyone renewed their card ? Doesn't seem to be anyway of doing it online .

I got an email saying it would renew automatically from my credit card, and if my card details had changed I could log into the site and update them. They haven't, so I didn't.

Limestone1

Piercemeear wrote: »

I got an email saying it would renew automatically from my credit card, and if my card details had changed I could log into the site and update them. They haven't, so I didn't.

Tks - I'll await the email

Vélo

I didn't get an email yet. I was on to them though and they said they'd automatically renew unless they're advised to cancel it. I explained to them that I changed my credit card during the year but had only just changed it on their system. They confirmed that they had renewed the subscrition but hadn't applied for the payment yet.

oflahero

Lumen wrote: »

Not a great day for me.

Had a dentists appointment at 08:30 off Grafton St. Got train to Connolly, walked to nearest DB location....no bikes. Had to walk instead, was 15 minutes late.

Left dentist, took a DB out for a tour of the city (scouting for new office). Looked OK on the stand, but front was punctured. Tried cycling on the rim but cornering wasn't safe. Had to stand around waiting for my account to unlock itself before I could get a new bike.

Tour done. Popped bike back to James St. No spaces. Cycled to Merrion Sq. No spaces. Waited for 10 mins to dock the damn bike. Another 15-20 minutes wasted.

A year on these cannot be described as teething problems. If I was a tourist or unemployed it would be fine, but on today's evidence the system isn't working well enough to be reliable for people who have to get places.

Ah, the rage and frustration. I felt like that the other day when a similar experience made me late. Nearly kicked the terminal.

After the red mist faded though, I resigned myself to the fact that it's hardly the system's fault. It's not perfect, but I do see more of the redistribution flatbed vans doing their thing in the morning and evening, and some of the always-either-full-or-empty stands are currently being extended to reflect their popularity. The system doesn't come with a guarantee.

Dublinbikes2go.com on your smartphone will give you a reasonable indication of availability at each stand. It's not up to the second, or minute, even, but I won't expect to find a bike at a 1/20 stand, or fully expect to be able to leave a bike back at a 19/20 stand, for example.

As for the puncture, that's happened to me twice. Nothing like the frustration of standing around waiting for the stupid terminal to let me take out a bike again, but it was my own stupid fault for not checking the bike first. Now I always pinch the tyres before going to the terminal.

(Actually that would be a nice tweak to the DB system - if you take a bike and return it to the same stand within 30 secs, then surely the system should let you take another out immediately - you've hardly gamed the system.)

NuMarvel

oflahero wrote: »

(Actually that would be a nice tweak to the DB system - if you take a bike and return it to the same stand within 30 secs, then surely the system should let you take another out immediately - you've hardly gamed the system.)

I'm almost certain it already does something like this. I've had two occasions where I've brought a bike back almost straight after taking it out and both times it let me hire another bike straight away.

As for the availability thing, it is annoying, but it is a victim of it's own success. 1.1 million journeys in one year is alot of cycling! Hopefully the extensions and additions will reduce the unavailability. What would also be handy is if you could check availability of other other stands when you initially hire the bike. At the moment, you can check it if you swipe your card at a full station, so it should be doable (he says with his systems and computer degree from the "University of Listening to my Housemate").

Chips Lovell

Lumen wrote: »

A year on these cannot be described as teething problems. If I was a tourist or unemployed it would be fine, but on today's evidence the system isn't working well enough to be reliable for people who have to get places.

As it happens I saw that they've started work on extending some of the stations today:



I rode one with a flat once too. Not a good idea. I crashed.