Tips to Regulate Private Bike Sharing
Regulation of bike-share schemes should aim at the goal of creating long-term sustainable mobility options on bicycles. This, in our opinion, can best be achieved by providing the opportunity for bike-shares to place a necessary amount of bikes on the streets to provide a proof of concept and thereafter grow their scheme provided that the bikes are utilised. Regulators should seek to prevent bike-share systems from applying predatory pricing, that is, reducing prices below the long-term sustainable level.
To make matters more concrete, our suggestion is that cities should allow bike-share schemes to place an initial maximum number of bikes (for example, 1 bike per 1,000 citizens) and require a certain level of usage on the bikes to be achieved before the bike-share scheme can scale. Considering that cities would like to increase bike usage, permits should be allocated to bike-share companies without fees to ensure that cost is not passed onto users.
Cities should establish minimum pricing per daily rental and half-hour rental (most systems’ price structures are based on short and long term users). Avoidance of predatory pricing is important because even if citizens seem to benefit from the initial low prices, in the long-term this is a motive of investors to make a huge return, not to improve cycling.
In conclusion, cities need to be careful in asserting their power to regulate the newborn bike sharing market. Doing nothing now could easily lead to a backlash and missing out on a fantastic urban transport and mobility opportunity. Excessive restrictions would mean the same. At Donkey Republic, we are eager to work with cities; not only where we have presence (Copenhagen, Berlin, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Budapest, Munich, Vienna, etc) but in any city that is starting to think about what to do in the bike-share space.
To make matters more concrete, our suggestion is that cities should allow bike-share schemes to place an initial maximum number of bikes (for example, 1 bike per 1,000 citizens) and require a certain level of usage on the bikes to be achieved before the bike-share scheme can scale. Considering that cities would like to increase bike usage, permits should be allocated to bike-share companies without fees to ensure that cost is not passed onto users.
Cities should establish minimum pricing per daily rental and half-hour rental (most systems’ price structures are based on short and long term users). Avoidance of predatory pricing is important because even if citizens seem to benefit from the initial low prices, in the long-term this is a motive of investors to make a huge return, not to improve cycling.
In conclusion, cities need to be careful in asserting their power to regulate the newborn bike sharing market. Doing nothing now could easily lead to a backlash and missing out on a fantastic urban transport and mobility opportunity. Excessive restrictions would mean the same. At Donkey Republic, we are eager to work with cities; not only where we have presence (Copenhagen, Berlin, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Budapest, Munich, Vienna, etc) but in any city that is starting to think about what to do in the bike-share space.
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