Share Bikes

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EXPERT OBSERVER
Can e-scooters solve the 'last mile' problem? They'll need to avoid the fate of dockless bikes.
As urban planners, we have not been good at integrating land uses, such as homes, shops and offices, with our transport infrastructure. Thus many people find the nearest train or bus stop is too far too walk and too close to drive (even if they could be sure of finding parking). This has created what is commonly known as the “last mile” problem.
In some Australian cities, hilliness and hot summers add to this problem. The consequences for people’s work commute are obvious. In the end, many people find it’s simplest to drive to and from work.
Over the past 12 months, something new has been promoted as the solution to the last mile problem. Shared e-scooters are <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/dockless-scooters-are-coming-but-may-push-their-luck-with-the-law/news-story/a9f588609ec0c0688e93b2ea7d16a5d6" target="_blank">reportedly on their way to Australia</a>. Powered by a rechargeable battery, these are dockless, have a range of 20-60 kilometres per charge and a top speed of 24 kilometres per hour.
Businesses on the move
The two main e-scooter companies, Lime and Bird, have attracted the most interest. Several other smaller companies have entered the e-scooter market this year, including Scoot, Skip and Spin.
While both are new ventures, Bird and Lime have raised considerable funding in a short time.
Bird (whose scooters are pictured above), founded by a former Uber executive late last year, has a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/scooter-startup-bird-raises-400-million-in-4-months-rockets-to-2-billion-valuation-2018-6?r=US&amp;IR=T" target="_blank">market valuation of US$2 billion after raising US$400 million</a> in venture capital over the past four months. Bird has e-scooters in <a href="https://www.bird.co/" target="_blank">74 US cities, Windsor (Canada), Tel Aviv and Paris, as well as on 22 university campuses</a>.
Lime was founded in January 2017 as a bikeshare business, but has branched out to e-bikes and e-scooters in the past six months. It operates in <a href="https://www.li.me/locations" target="_blank">49 US cities and seven European cities, as well as on 20 university campuses</a>, although e-scooters have not been deployed at all locations. A group of investors including Uber recently <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/google-and-uber-invest-335-million-in-lime-scooters/" target="_blank">put US$335 million into Lime</a>, which is valued at US$1.1 billion.
Some believe Uber will buy Lime as a step in its quest to build a multi-modal transport platform that provides car, bicycle and scooter sharing services.
What’s the appeal of e-scooters?
Uber is interested in e-scooters and e-bicycles because <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2018/07/25/a-new-study-says-services-like-uberpool-are-making-traffic-worse/" target="_blank">many of its ridesharing trips are short ones</a> that could be made by e-scooters.
If Uber could shift its short-distance passengers from cars to e-scooters, it would be able to use fewer drivers and reduce operating costs. The remaining drivers would be transporting passengers over longer distances for higher fares.
Shared e-scooters provide a number of advantages over shared e-bikes. The rider can stand up which, for office workers, means no wrinkling of clothes. The posture is also easier for women wearing skirts and dresses.
Scooters are also easier than bicycles to manoeuvre along narrow paths. In some places, e-scooters are not subject to helmet requirements (unlike bicycles).
How to avoid the fate of dock-less bikes
E-scooters are not without some disadvantages. Because they are dockless, they tend to litter footpaths, parks and even rivers.
This is similar to the problems presented by dockless share bikes. A number of dockless bike share companies have been forced to withdraw services in Australia because of this.
Many communities lack appropriate means of regulating them. The question of whether e-scooters should be allowed on footpaths or only on roads and bike paths remains unanswered. (Given that they have a top speed of 24km/h, e-scooters travelling on footpaths pose a safety concern.)
Lime and Bird have tried to deal with these problems. For example, Bird has committed to a <a href="https://www.bird.co/sos-pledge-mar272018" target="_blank">Save our Sidewalks (SOS)</a> pledge and has encouraged other e-scooter share companies to do the same. The pledge has three components:
<ul>
<li>daily pick-ups of e-scooters every evening and redeployment the next day</li>
<li>responsible growth in the number of scooters deployed based on actual usage</li>
<li>revenue sharing of US$1 per scooter per day with host cities for the purposes of building and maintaining bike lanes and promoting safe riding.</li>
</ul>
Adopting an Uber idea, Lime pays for people to collect and charge the scooters each night.
While we have no e-scooter share systems in Australia yet, both Lime and Bird are reportedly <a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/other-industries/if-youre-celebrating-the-end-of-obikes-be-prepared-for-something-much-worse/news-story/4ee06f9d00c124654611b42795a500a9" target="_blank">looking to launch here soon</a>. How will they fare? Are Australian cities prepared for them?
Neil Sipe, Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, The University of Queensland and Dorina Pojani, Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, The University of Queensland
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 
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j.ballantyne1990-6AQqhLzZaK

Can e-scooters avoid the fate of dock-less bikes

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GUEST OBSERVATION
Share-bike littering is a problem almost everywhere they’re introduced. In countries as diverse as China, Singapore and Ireland the bikes can be seen abandoned in the worst places. There are three elements to understanding the problems of share-bike dumping and vandalism:
<ul>
<li>
behaviour, or how we make the choices about how to act</li>
<li>
context, or the environment we’re in at the time the action happens, of which national culture is an important part</li>
<li>
cognition or how our brains process information.</li>
</ul>
I have previously discussed the first two elements of behaviour and context.
This article focuses on the third element, cognition.
Biases enable quick decision-making
An important theory in how we process information is called dual processing theory . In summary it says that we have two ways of processing information. One is fast, easy and automatic, which Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman describes as System 1. The other way is slow, effortful and deliberate, referred to as System 2.
Underlying this theory is the assumption that we try to minimise the cognitive effort we put into decision-making. We allow System 1 to do most of the heavy lifting, and refer the complicated stuff to System 2 only when needed.
That’s all well and good, except that under this theory much of our behaviour is an unconsidered reflex. While that should work well for most situations, sometimes it can lead to unintended consequences. Such as when we use share bikes. To be clear, what we’re looking at here is the behaviour of the share bike user who leaves the bike at risk, rather than the vandalism or littering that follows.
System 1 operates on mental shortcuts, or simple decision rules known as heuristics. While these generally work well, heuristics aren’t a good fit for every situation. When they fail the resulting behaviour is a bias.
So what biases are at work here?
When we look at share-bike littering, five biases are likely to be at play.
<ol>
<li>Omission bias is particularly relevant, as it’s how share bikes become available to vandals. This bias roughly says that we judge an action that leads to harm as worse than lack of action that leads to harm. We don’t see inaction, such as failing to park a bike in a safe and appropriate spot, as particularly wrong, even though it still leads to damage. So, a user is likely to justify leaving the share bike somewhere dodgy on the basis that they didn’t do anything wrong. What they won’t admit to unfortunately is they exposed the bike to the risk of vandalism. If more share bikes were left in safer places, the incidence of share-bike littering would be likely to fall. If a share bike has been left somewhere risky and exposed to vandalism, a second bias could kick in.</li>
<li>Self-serving bias says that individuals are much more likely to attribute positive outcomes to their own behaviour, and negative outcomes to someone else’s. So, if a share bike ends up in a river, it can be justified entirely as someone else’s poor behaviour, rather than the result of being left exposed by the user.</li>
<li>Attribution error bias may play a part if the share-bike user happens to be a little reflective. He or she could attribute their risky behaviour to the force of circumstance, which in their minds gave them little choice other than to abandon the bike to its fate. Unfortunately, bike scheme operators don’t help in these situations by not making it clear enough where it is risky or safe to park bikes. The operators try to encourage users to do the right thing with a series of incentives and penalties. Unfortunately, two further biases blunt those measures.</li>
<li>Optimism bias is the first of these. It’s the all-too-familiar idea that, for example, “bad things won’t happen to me”. For a user who is aware of potential penalties, the temptation to think they’ll get away with it could be enough to tip them into abandoning the bike.</li>
<li>Discounting bias also makes potential rewards or penalties less effective. This is the notion that future penalties or rewards are not as powerful as present ones. For the share-bike user, maybe wending their way home after a good night out, the appeal of ditching the bike now and getting to bed, versus a possible penalty some time in the future, could be an easy decision to make.</li>
</ol>
So, how do we counter these biases?
Knowing that some or all of those biases are operating, what are we to do about the problems with share bikes? The answer lies in accepting these biases rather than ignoring them.
Operators could refine their business models and engineer better behaviour. For a start, they could make it much clearer to users where it’s safe or unsafe to park the bikes.
As operators track where users are, they could also notify them through their app that a penalty is highly likely if they behave in certain ways. This could deal with two biases: optimism bias – by reminding the user they’re certain to be penalised if they don’t do as they should – and the discounting bias, i.e. the penalty will happen now, not at some time in the future.
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92421/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1">The question remains, what will push share bike operators to change their business models? Will market forces such as bike damage and the cost of recovery be enough to get them to change? Or is political leadership needed? For instance, in parts of Malaysia, share bikes have been seized when obstructing sidewalks.
Conor Wynn, PhD Candidate at BehaviourWorks, Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash University
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-biases-create-problems-with-share-bikes-heres-what-we-can-do-to-counter-them-92421" target="_blank">original article</a>.
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