So, who regularly uses the Melbourne Bike Share?

[Canuck]

https://www.theage.com.au/melbourne-news/no-thought-epa-boss-slams-obike-rollout-amid-new-crackdown-20180530-p4zied.html

[Mike.Ayling]

https://www.theage.com.au/melbourne-news/no-thought-epa-boss-slams-obike-rollout-amid-new-crackdown-20180530-p4zied.html

Which answers my question as to why I did not see any in the City yestersay.

Mike

[Matt1]

I think it is sad to see them go. It was fun to just find a bike out in the street and go for a ride on a whim.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-12/o ... ne/9860314

[Claude Cat]

I think it is sad to see them go. It was fun to just find a bike out in the street and go for a ride on a whim.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-12/o ... ne/9860314

The idea was poorly executed, and sadly there's too many ****s out there that made it unsustainable.
Just need to roll out the blue bikes better.

[richard_s]

I think it is sad to see them go. It was fun to just find a bike out in the street and go for a ride on a whim.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-12/o ... ne/9860314

The idea was poorly executed, and sadly there's too many ****s out there that made it unsustainable.
Just need to roll out the blue bikes better.

Just to show how poorly executed this was (and why there is no way Obike could have met the EPA requirements):

Share-bike operator oBike has admitted it does not use independent GPS to track its bicycles but a problematic system reliant on the customer’s mobile phone, leaving would-be riders sometimes booking bikes that are not there.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/n ... 6dbe008957

(I'm also a little surprised that this was the only media reference I could find to such a fundamental flaw)

(Edited to add the quote)

[Toyopet]

Just to show how poorly executed this was (and why there is no way Obike could have met the EPA requirements):

Share-bike operator oBike has admitted it does not use independent GPS to track its bicycles but a problematic system reliant on the customer’s mobile phone, leaving would-be riders sometimes booking bikes that are not there.

Thanks for that richard_s. I always assumed, incorrectly, that Obike knew the locations of their bikes via a GPS transmitter on the bike. Relying on last the known location from the customer was never going to work.

[Daicos Mullets]

According to the Herald-Sun this morning, the Vic government has made the decision to scrap the scheme.

[victor]

According to the Herald-Sun this morning, the Vic government has made the decision to scrap the scheme.

I wonder if their postmortem will mention anything about mandatory helmets and intolerant motorists being among the real causes of the bike share failing? The absence of both those factors is common in various other countries with successful bike share schemes.

[Mike.Ayling]

According to the Herald-Sun this morning, the Vic government has made the decision to scrap the scheme.

I wonder if their postmortem will mention anything about mandatory helmets and intolerant motorists being among the real causes of the bike share failing? The absence of both those factors is common in various other countries with successful bike share schemes.

I heard a BV spokeswoman on ABC radio on Friday.
She opined that there were not enough parking stations, there should be more and closer together which is why she suggested that the existing infrastructure might work better if transferred to a regional centre like Geelong, Bendigo, Ballarat.
The presenter mentioned helmets but she did not buy into that discussion.
She also said that the Brisbane scheme was working very well and it had a ship load of docking stations.

Mike

[fixie]

Further to this. There was an article in The Age today about using electric powered scooters. Particularly Lime, but that is irrelevant. Paris had more than 1000,000 hires in a year. Berlin reached 1000,000 in 80 days after the introduction. It took a lot of legislative argumentation to get anything in Berlin. They are limited to 20 kph, and may not ride on the footpaths, but at least it is happening. Noted that the biggest opposition came from Medicos and that the statistics that they produced turned out to be spurious when rigorously examined.

I was in Europe during this Northern summer. Scooters in Paris, Brussels, Vienna were everywhere and clearly met the need for micromobility. I understand that they are operating in Brisbane, Sydney,and Monash University campus in Australia

This is a movement I think should be welcomed and supported by all cyclists.

The business and operating model is simple and community supportive.

[baudman]

... I understand that they are operating in Brisbane...

Brisbane has two operators - I used the other one (can't remember their name).
Get the app. Find a scooter. Jump on. Cruise around. Park it - if in a high demand area and take a pic the hire will cost you less.

Unlike the o-Bike, the operators monitor where they're left and, of course, they have to get charged semi-regularly so that's important.

Also, it seemed like most people in Brisbane were quite accepting of people on them.

[fixie]

Further to this matter:

It has not been all plain sailing in Europe. Paris stopped scooters being ridden on the pavement after a 90 year old pedestrian was knocked down and who subsequently died. Macron stepped in and immediately introduced a new law to empower local councils to regulate for scooters.

Vienna has introduced a curfew requiring operators to remove them off the streets between certain hours, usually dusk till 7 or 7.30 o'clock. They have also put a limit on the number of scooters out there. I presume that is that they have limited the number of scooters each operator may operate. This was partially in response to the scooters being left about and becoming a hazard for blind people on the pavements.

Amsterdam has forbidden them completely. I suspect that this is because they do not fit in to the bike riding ethos where the shoals of cyclists blend in well with each other and expect everyone around to be aware of them and equally they are aware of everyone else and scooters become an odd unpredictable fish.