The Bike Scheme thread

joeKel73

They're working on the NUIG Kingfisher station this morning.

The screen was installed in the last few days and they have a small shelter over it today to work on linking it up.

Yay for the thread renaming

joeKel73

J o e wrote: »

They're working on the NUIG Kingfisher station this morning.

NUIG Kingfisher is now showing up as online. 1 bike, 39 stands.

death1234567

I used the Glenina Stand already, working fine and it's really handy. All downhill down to Lough Atalia and then pan flat over to the sparch. Great facility and it's pretty much free.

Redhairedguy

Really looking forward to the possibility of a Salthill stand!

what_traffic

boardzz wrote: »

Don't know if this has been mentioned but 3 of the new stations are gone live. They moved the locking mechanisms from other stations to these new ones and deactivated the stations they were take out of. Woodquay and bottom of eyre sq is two of them.
Bodkin, Dangan and Bon Secour are gone live.

Seems highly unusual.
You see them doing this? or are you just in the know as have seen no mention in local media about it.
Any idea what the differences to the locking mechanisms are?

boardzz

This court case is over the locking mechanisms. They are stopped from installing new locking mechanisms however they are allowed to move those that are currently installed.
ie. Close one station to open another.

Ruben Remus

Redhairedguy wrote: »

Really looking forward to the possibility of a Salthill stand!

Any news or developments on this?

what_traffic

boardzz wrote: »

This court case is over the locking mechanisms. They are stopped from installing new locking mechanisms however they are allowed to move those that are currently installed.
ie. Close one station to open another.

Yes that has been covered in the thread, just trying to understand what the difference between the two locking systems is? and why the change? Money?
Have seen in Lower Eyre Square docking station today that 4 of the docks are not available. (Wrapped with black plastic)

gordongekko

what_traffic wrote: »

Yes that has been covered in the thread, just trying to understand what the difference between the two locking systems is? and why the change? Money?
Have seen in Lower Eyre Square docking station today that 4 of the docks are not available. (Wrapped with black plastic)

Whole station was off line when i passed it this afternoon

joeKel73

Seamus Quirks Rd is now online too.

what_traffic wrote: »

Yes that has been covered in the thread, just trying to understand what the difference between the two locking systems is? and why the change? Money?

The (presumably cheaper) version used on the new stations allegedly violates the patent for the original locks. The original patent is owned by one of the companies in the consortium that runs the scheme.

ceatharloch

Wonderful that some bright spark managing the systems thought of moving around some
of the old locks, so that new docking stations can be used (court cases can go on for years....): Why not activate ALL new stations with 5+ locks from the old ones? Or indeed
close down completely a few of the city center ones (that are very close to one another) and
put the locks in the stations further out?
Of course the "elephant in the kitchen" is why there is still not a station in Salthill......

joeKel73

ceatharloch wrote: »

Why not activate ALL new stations with 5+ locks from the old ones? Or indeed
close down completely a few of the city center ones (that are very close to one another) and
put the locks in the stations further out?

That seems to be what they're now doing - station by station. They need to physically remove locks, seal up the offline stations and install them on the new stations though, so takes a bit of time.

ceatharloch wrote: »

Of course the "elephant in the kitchen" is why there is still not a station in Salthill......

This has been covered repeatedly in the thread. In short, putting a station in Salthill would require multiple stations to branch out that direction so as not to exceed the recommended distance between bike share stations. Nobody wants to cycle to Salthill to find the station full or offline and have to cycle back to the city centre to return the bike. Rather than a strip of bridging stations, they have targetted the new stations at residential and student areas to target daily commuters (students and city workers).

ceatharloch

[QUOTE=J
This has been covered repeatedly in the thread. In short, putting a station in Salthill would require multiple stations to branch out that direction so as not to exceed the recommended distance between bike share stations. Nobody wants to cycle to Salthill to find the station full or offline and have to cycle back to the city centre to return the bike. Rather than a strip of bridging stations, they have targetted the new stations at residential and student areas to target daily commuters (students and city workers).[/QUOTE]

I've heard that argument before, but I don't think it holds water: Real people, students and commuters also live in Salthill. If there is some minimum distance, put one station where beginning of prom meets Grattan Road, that is not far from GTI station and would (partly) serve Salthill with just 1 station.

joeKel73

ceatharloch wrote: »

I've heard that argument before, but I don't think it holds water: Real people, students and commuters also live in Salthill.

They do but not with the same density or potential catchment as where they are targetting.

ceatharloch wrote: »

If there is some minimum distance, put one station where beginning of prom meets Grattan Road, that is not far from GTI station and would (partly) serve Salthill with just 1 station.

In the technical report when proposing the bike scheme they mention "maximum distance between stations (typically around 300m)". Where you are suggesting is still 1km from the GTI/Father Burke Rd station. I'm sure they're exceeding that 300m with some of the new stations but I don't think by that much.

Edit: It looks like Glenina will exceed that even when Lough Atalia station opens, assuming they're not putting any new stations between these 2 new ones.

ceatharloch

J o e wrote: »

Edit: It looks like Glenina will exceed that even when Lough Atalia station opens, assuming they're not putting any new stations between these 2 new ones.

Glenina to Lough Atalia Station is already 1km (on google maps), so already they are _not_ following any 300m or 400m minimum distance: GTI station to one at
beginning of prom would be similar distance (900m on google maps).

ceatharloch

.....sorry on previous post "minimum distance" should read "maximum distance"! :rolleyes:

what_traffic

Westside station has bikes in it now.

what_traffic

Anybody having issue with the Android App for Bikeshare.ie?

Moribund

what_traffic wrote: »

Anybody having issue with the Android App for Bikeshare.ie?

Me too ... telling me "Unfortunately, bikeshare.ie has stopped"

what_traffic

Moribund wrote: »

Me too ... telling me "Unfortunately, bikeshare.ie has stopped"

I uninstalled it and re-installed it again. Seems to work now.
Have not used the bikeshare much up to now - but since it has the NEW stations would be more inclined to use it from now on.

joeKel73

O' Shaughnessy Bridge (Fisheries Field to NUIG) is online now too!

what_traffic

The Lough Atalia Station is offline - but had bikes docked when I passed by it at 14h30 today.

ronnie3585

Is anyone else experiencing problems with taking bikes from docking stations? The station at the Park & Ride in NUIG has been out of service since this day last week. I've phoned customer service three times and have gotten the same response each time that a call has been logged with the technical team, but I couldn't speak to them or anyone else about the issue when I ask.

It's other stations too, UCHG was out of action this morning so I got a bike at the Kingfisher NUIG. Then at lunchtime I went to get a bike at Kingfisher and the station was out of service. At all times the app shows that the station is working.

It's very frustrating as I used to use them a lot, but can't now because the service is so unreliable.

joeKel73

ronnie3585 wrote: »

It's very frustrating as I used to use them a lot, but can't now because the service is so unreliable.

Apparently they were doing free signups in NUIG for freshers' week a couple of weeks ago, if people try them and they get this experience they'll just give up on them straight away.

Worn Out

Terrible experience today with the Galway scheme. I decided to pick up a bike from behind the Huntsman and cycle to west side. There were plenty of bikes but The station was not working so it told me to go to the nearest station, details to be found on a map which didn’t exist. I knew there was a station at city hall so off I went to pick up the last bike at the station. The reason it was the last bike was because the saddle was faulty, the handle bars were off set, the chain had come off and the gears were useless. I fixed the chain and cycled slowly off to west side. On my way I noted another empty bike bay at the university. Finally when I reached west side I was lucky enough to get one of the last available slots, a third of them were empty though but “out of order” and locked off. The whole organization is very poor.

tmh106

Pretty much identical experience to Worn_Out last Thursday. Very disappointing.

what_traffic

tmh106 wrote: »

Pretty much identical experience to Worn_Out last Thursday. Very disappointing.

Bikes and Stations could do with a bit of TLC by the sounds of it.

Subcomandante Marcos

I picked up a bike recently and started pedaling up prospect hill from Eyre Square, took the right hand turn down towards the bus station and discovered that my brakes didn't work, which was a nice surprise.

Besides that I've has issues with tyres having very low air pressure, gears now working, bottom brackets sounding like they have loose rocks in them, bent pedal axles, loose cranks, broken seat releases, bent seats and a load of other problems. I'd safely say I've had bikes with problems more than bikes that actually worked.

Whoever is running the scheme in Galway is a disgrace, I used Dublin bikes for years and very rarely had any problems with them but the Galway scheme is horribly maintained.

aliaslinden

Subcomandante Marcos wrote: »

I picked up a bike recently and started pedaling up prospect hill from Eyre Square, took the right hand turn down towards the bus station and discovered that my brakes didn't work, which was a nice surprise.

Besides that I've has issues with tyres having very low air pressure, gears now working, bottom brackets sounding like they have loose rocks in them, bent pedal axles, loose cranks, broken seat releases, bent seats and a load of other problems. I'd safely say I've had bikes with problems more than bikes that actually worked.

Whoever is running the scheme in Galway is a disgrace, I used Dublin bikes for years and very rarely had any problems with them but the Galway scheme is horribly maintained.

Since the bike scheme started it has been horribly maintained. More often than not the bike has a problem. Had one instance of the front wheel separating entirely from the bike. Luckily i wasnt on the bike at the time. They just dont seem to care.