The Paris Velib' bike sharing system is in trouble. Despite being the largest such system in any city, Velib' is suffering problems of theft and vandalism. Will Velib' survive to be Paris' "civilizing force" as Mayor Bertrand Delanoë hoped it would be?
Over half the original fleet of 15,000 specially made bicycles have disappeared, presumed stolen.
They have been used 42 million times since their introduction but vandalism and theft are taking their toll.
The company which runs the scheme, JCDecaux, says it can no longer afford to operate the city-wide network.
Out of 20,000 bicycles, 7800 have disappeared and 11,600 vandalized. They repair 1500 bikes a day, almost 10% of the fleet.
What makes Velib' different from other systems, which don't appear to be having such large theft problems? Seems to me this isn't the end of Velib'; they'll figure something out. Perhaps better security, cameras, or something. Perhaps the city will take it over and run it like a proper public service, much like New York City was forced to take over and consolidate the privately owned subway lines.
Comments
Kevin Love
Seems like a very low loss rate to me
Sun, 02/15/2009 - 15:11Lets get real here. Out of 42 million rentals, 18,400 were stolen or vandalized. That is a rate of one in 2,283. Big deal. To me that seems like a very low loss rate.
I would be willing to wager that in Paris's car rental companies, far more than one in 2283 rentals has the car stolen or vandalized.
This article is pure anti-bike spin. The headline should read "Parisians astonishingly honest."
Darren_S
50% loss rate
Sun, 02/15/2009 - 16:49If they have 15 000 bikes and lose half of them they have a 50% loss rate. They do not have 42 million bikes.
kiwano
Lies, damned lies, and...
Sun, 02/15/2009 - 20:16They dont' have 42M bikes, but the article reported the 15k bikes they've got having been rented 42M times. Sure half the bikes have been lost, but the bikes look to have been, on average, rented 2100 times each.
The comparison to a car company is somewhat apt, in that car companies turn their fleet over long before any car has been rented 2100 times, but then it loses a lot of its value when you consider how long a car is rented for vs. a bike, both in terms of time, and distance travelled.
Really, the numbers provided are almost completely meaningless in terms of deciding what should be done. The number I'd actually want to see is how long a bicycle in their fleet remains in service, on average, so that would also include losses to collision, just plain wearing out, etc., instead of just theft and vandalism. Another useful statistic would be an indication of what proportion of bicycles leaving the fleet are due to various causes.
The first number (along with a couple of others like maintenance costs) would indicate how much the program ought to cost to run, and the second stat I mentioned would suggest what might help to make the first number smaller. For example, if the program's bicycles are built to last for 60000km of riding, and they're getting stolen after only having been ridden 7500km, then there are savings to be had by reducing durability in future bike orders.
I think that what's actually happening is that the administrative costs are higher than JCDecaux anticipated or budgeted for. They're trying to get more money/ad space from the city of Paris in exchange for running the program, and they're dropping statistics that emphasize their difficulty into the public discourse. In that case, this news is somewhat heartening, because it's not a card they'd want to play if the political support for the continuation of Velib couldn't be counted on. I'm going to take a stab in the dark that another factor here is that the weakening global economy has really dropped the value of the ad space that JCDecaux gets from the deal, and that's also hurting their bottom line and motivating the release of such data.
geoffrey (not verified)
propoganda piece
Sun, 02/15/2009 - 15:40http://www.thewashcycle.com/2009/02/dont-stop-velibing.html
http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/02/12/reports-of-velibs-demise-greatly-e...
brian
Dosn't work
Mon, 02/16/2009 - 20:52Hi all,
I've been to Lyon, and seen their scaled-down JCDecaux "Velov" system. It ain't all it appears to be. I wouldn't use the system because it required a credit card for security deposit, and I've live credit-card free for 6 years now. I sat on a Velov bike, and it's just like a hybrid. By comparison, I felt way more stable and comfortable on my Trek 3900 hardtail. But that's just my feel, my perception. Finally, I would rather own my own things than rent. At least I know what state of repair and performance my vehicle's in.
My friend Vero tells me of most of the bikes available for rent in Velov, she found a lot in poor shape or have been abused, and after trying the system a few times, she decided to buy her own bike, and not use the system again.
Vero also noted, and I observed many times, Velov created a bigger problem with people who just diddn't give a flipping care about riding safely or fitting in traffic, and would ride really dangerously all over the place, including sidewalks, off sidewalks, across terraces and plazas willy-nilly, thru crowds, etc. She mentioned a story in the paper that summer about a Velov rider who plowed into a crowd of children injuring three, and was held in custody but released; and that nothing might happen, because the cyclist diddn't have a license, and the bike, of course, was not his...it raised the question of who's to blame, who pays the kids medical bills?
Here in toronto, I doubt a bike sharing system would work. And I would argue that the market for new and used bikes is thriving, and it's not due to lack of vehicles available that more ppl don't ride. My feeling, my interpretation, is perception of safety on a bike. There are simply too many people who percieve bikes as toys, and not part of the transportation system. Changing how ppl think about bicycling is a chief focus that should come ahead of providing bicycles.
cheers,
brian
herb
thanks for balance
Tue, 02/17/2009 - 23:47The Streetsblog post provides some welcome balance, since the BBC article was only interested in talking to JCDecaux. (Even your comment, Brian, offers some balance though your anecdotes hardly provide damning evidence against bikesharing.)
There are a lot of different ways to crunch numbers, but if the company's not willing to provide the details, than I suggest Paris cancel the deal, take over the bikes and the billboards. I think it's a bad idea to tie the functioning of public transit to one revenue source. Right from the beginning the City should have paid for it out of general revenues. Maybe the still could have given away the rights to manage the billboards but take a cut of annual revenues. JCDecaux has a devious carrot.
Since kiwano brought up damned lies, I thought I'd see what BikeShare (Toronto's defunct non-profit bikesharing system) experienced. Comparing disappeared and retired bikes to transactions in 2004 - one of the busier years - BikeShare had a ratio of one lost bike for every 105 transactions. Velib's is around one lost for every 2700 transactions. Since BikeShare allowed people take out a bike for up to three days instead of 1/2 hour for Velib, I should also estimate the number of lost bikes to kilometres travelled. I assume that people in both places travel around 5km per trip and that a Velib transaction equals one trip. A BikeShare transaction on the other hand is estimated to be 10km or two trips.
BikeShare: 1 lost bike for every 1050 km travelled
Velib: 1 lost bike for every 13460 km travelled
Gee, this makes BikeShare look pretty expensive, if my numbers are right. Even taking into account vandalism I bet you'd find that there's not much here that should sink Velib. Cry babies.
I'm not sure, however, if we'll ever know for certain with JCDecaux's closed books. Who says privatization is the most efficient way?