During a visit to Chicago, we had the opportunity to check out the newly launched Divvy Bike Share program. The system works like this — you swipe your card, pay $7 and get access to a bike (or 2 for $14) for an unlimited number of sub 30 minute rides for 24 hours. If you go over 30 minutes in any single ride you get charged incrementally on a sliding scale.

Our experience was very positive overall, but there were a couple of hiccups. At one point, our cards were not being accepted, we called the number on the bike station, spoke to a rep and found that the station had only been installed yesterday and there must be an issue with the actual station. We moved on to the next one a few blocks away and were able to successfully rent. That was unfortunate, but service was prompt and the next station was nearby.

We were able to ride throughout the city without an issue, drop bikes at stations along the way that were intelligently placed throughout the riding area. Only once did we go over the 30 minute mark, but we were cognizant of it and wanted to keep riding. If you attempt to drop at a station that is full, Divvy will also give you an additional free 15 minutes to find another place to drop.

Why does Divvy work? In my opinion, the success of the system primarily hinges on three factors:

1. Enough sites at launch to drive adoption
2. Simple enough system that a first timer can use it without any trouble
3. Logical placement (in quantity) of stations to pick up and drop off bikes

Items number 1 and 3 are not the same. The key difference is that for these items, the number of launch sites needs to be large enough that people can easily access a bike in key areas of the city. The location of these also needs to be logical in a different way. The designers need to have an understanding of the logical destinations of their ridership at launch. That will help build a good spread of stations across a logical riding area, rather than a few sporadic locations (or even many across a large area) that do not serve a ridership of any great quantity.

Divvy launched with 75 stations and plans to expand to nearly 400. These stations encompass approximately a 75 square nautical mile radius. Another city which is launching a similar program soon is Austin, Texas. The plan in Austin is to launch 10 stations with 100 total bikes in the downtown area and expand that to 40 over the 6-9 months after launch. In comparison to Chicago, the potential size of the Austin area is quite variable, but a logical slice of it would put the nautical square miles at about 20, as compared to 75, so a bit less than 1/3 the size of the Chicago area. However, the goal is to only launch 1/10 as many stations overall.

The city is currently piloting an initial 11 stations located throughout downtown and certain, highly popular area south of downtown proper. This will be an interesting test of the new system which should be a an indicator of the future potential of the system. While tourists will likely comprise a significant portion of the initial ridership, it will be a critical test to see if the number and location of the stations are suited to those who live and work in Austin. Austin traffic is some of the worst in the nation according to several studies ( examples here and here) and a bike share program could do its part in reducing congestion in and around the downtown corridors of the city. While this may not address the larger issue of public transportation to and from the city’s suburbs, reducing traffic in these areas will help to keep the flow in and out of the city moving.

The program could catch on and grow, but there is some risk. Will the Austin Bike Program accomplish goals one and three listed above, and if so, will it be enough to encourage broad ridership in the city? Time will be the only thing to answer that question, but it is an interesting one when you contrast the approaches to solve a similar problem in two different cities. One interesting thing that the Austin program did while implementing the initial stations was to seek public input on the station locations via the B Cycle website. It will be interesting to see whether this will be advantageous to the adoption rates of the program early on.

For more information related to each of these programs visit the Austin Bike Share Program site and the Divvy Bike site.