Bike sharing systems to daily trips: what are we doing wrong?
The promotion of more sustainable and environmental friendly modes of transportation is well known as one of the ways to make the cities more livable. The bike sharing system is one of the mode of transport that can be an alternative to use of private cars. But the use of bike really means a change in all the cities where it was implemented?
The bike sharing system in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, is an example of system what didn't achieved the objective of being an alternative to use of private vehicles. Initially the system was been planned to attend the demand of transportation in some areas of the city. The idea was to encourage the citizens to choose the bicycles instead of private automobiles, improving the mobility of the city. However, the system failed because, after one year of its inauguration, the managers realized that this initial goal wasn't achieved. The main use of the system was found to be recreation and not transportation for daily activities as expected. It means that the people have not changed their preference for mode of transport, they just saw the bicycle system as a recreational or physical activity option.
But, what is the problem?
Under the perspective of the supply, there were some problems in the planning and implementation of this project. The system wasn't integrated with other modes of transport as bus or metro. The stations weren't necessarily installed considering the traveler's interest spots in the city. The bike sharing system is not integrated with other transportation systems, what means that bus card or metro card cannot be used to pay for the ride as happens in many other countries with similar systems as, for example, Taipei in Taiwan. Beyond that, in order to use the system it is necessary to do a registration in a website and the payment need to be done in advance using a credict card. As a consequence, part of the citizens (the poorest ones), who have no credit card or who cannot easily access internet end up being excluded. But, in my opinion as a user and a specialist in this area, the main problem is related with the lack of infrastructure as parking lots, specific traffic signs, connectivity of bike lanes (as can be seen in the map bellow that shows how fragmented are the bikeways in the center of city) and safety devices that make possible to the cyclist to share the streets with cars, buses, motorcycles, pedestrians and trucks when the bike lane are not available. All this features made the system fails as a transportation option in the city because, as can be seen, it does not attend the demand.
Therefore, to attend to the users needs and attract the expected demand, some improvement need to be done. The suppliers (in this case it is a Public-Private-Partnership) need to improve both infrastructure and management to make it possible for the citizens to consider the use of the bicycles as a real mode of transport in their daily routine. The demand will grow when the users feels that the system is accessible (easy to everyone to use), affordable (good cost compared with other individual modes), convenient (well located stations and integrated with other public systems as bus and metro) and safe (appropriate infrastructure, education, regulation and fiscalization for the population, specially for the automotive vehicle driver that offers risk for the cyclist).
The bike sharing system in Belo Horizonte city bring to us just some examples of the challenges that we need to overcome as urban planners in order to make the bike a real option for the daily trips in urban centers.
References:
- Map source: Mountain Bike BH website. http://mountainbikebh.com.br/mapaciclobh/. Accessed on June, 11 of 2017.
- Image source: Universo BH. "BIKE BH – bicicletas compartilhadas". https://universobh.wordpress.com. Accessed on June, 11 of 2017.