The Impact of COVID-19 on Bikeshare Operators [Part-1]
The world we knew before COVID-19 is a distant memory. The crisis has put entire countries under strict lockdown and impacted every part of our lives from who we can see, where we can work and how we can travel.
The question is: What comes next?
In a statement to the UK Parliament on the 6th May, Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared that the “near future should be a new golden age for cycling”.
Coming from the man who facilitated the successful London bikeshare scheme (now sponsored by Santander) and whos bikes are still affectionately known as ‘Boris Bikes’, this is fantastic reading.
However, urban mobility has been dramatically disrupted.
The movement of people across cities has reached an unprecedented low, but what has been the impact on bikeshare specifically?
To find out, we surveyed over 50 bikeshare operators who operate a range of system sizes, operating and financial models around the world. Today, we’re sharing our observations on the initial impact of COVID-19 on bikesharing operators.
Lockdown restrictions have resulted in a strong decline in urban mobility overall. As with all urban mobility systems, bikeshare systems were directly impacted by the restrictions, orders and recommendations of respective governments and local authorities.
For example, in Spain, the Middle East, Peru and India, where severe restrictions were placed on citizens, the local bikeshare systems were closed down completely. Meanwhile, systems deemed by their respective governments as an essential service continued to operate through the pandemic and have seen unusually high ridership in some cases.
From the feedback received it was evident that there was a common trend in the immediate implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, all of which are interrelated in nature.
These were Operations, Ridership and Finance, which we delve into more detail below:
Ridership
The impact of the pandemic on ridership of bikeshare systems differs hugely depending on who you speak to with cites that reduced citizens mobility seeing direct impacts.
Some cities observed large increases in ridership, whilst others large decreases. This is likely due to different government guidelines, operator policies, system viability and user profiles.
As with most transport offerings, which saw an average 90% decline in demand, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, bikeshare was not much different. The majority of systems observed between a 50–90% drop in ridership when compared to data from previous years at the same time. The collapse in demand is likely due to increased concerns of cleanliness and reduction of non-essential travel by countries across the world.
However, some systems observed not only an increased ridership (up to 4x in some cities) but also saw the traditional patterns of bikesharing usage completely change. Users were taking longer trips with their origin and destinations being noticeably different from previous weeks. There were also influx of new members sign ups as systems implemented special campaigns such as ‘Lets Ride This Out’ offered by Explore Bikeshare, Memphis.
Numerous systems also offered a range of free memberships, such as free 30-minute rides, to essential workers. This also seemed to impact systems usage patterns as higher ridership, and rebalancing priority was given to stations around hospitals and other critical areas including supermarkets & pharmacies.
Operations
In light of the unprecedented situation and people’s apprehension to travel, bikeshare operators had to adapt to local regulation and needs, to not only provide the safest and most useful service to their users but also to their staff.
The most evident adaptation? Reduction in operations workforces of between 30–50%, other two-wheeled shared mobility providers were also impacted to a similar extent due to a combination of the following:
- Self Isolation Protocols restricting staff availability.
- Scaling Back of both staff and fleetdue to collapse in demand (this was particularly prevalent in commuter and tourist dominated systems)
- Financial Reasons caused by reduced revenues, sponsorship etc. means reduction of fleets and headcount was inevitable.
Not only were staff’s roles affected, but the way they work was also heavily impacted. With media’s focus on the virus transmission being possible from services, combined with guidelines published by the World Health Organisation (WHO), companies had to modify their cleaning and sanitising protocols.
These new obligations were not only applicable to their users but also their staff. Operators implemented a range of measures which included closing stations, disinfecting vehicles and batteries and also to their staff by providing PPE and implementing new safety protocols.
A new, and likely unplanned protocol, was facilitating the operation with social distancing protocols in place. For a large number of operators this not only meant a reorganised strategy for field teams such as one person per operations vehicle or starting their shift from home, but also for the back-office operations teams who now had to operate, manage and dispatch teams across entire system networks — completely remotely.
Financial
The question that a lot of bikeshare operators will be asking is how to survive the financial crisis that closely follows the health one?
With huge drops in ridership, issues with operations and the tight funding & operating margins of bikeshare systems, financial crisis was always a possibility.
This was further compounded with the pandemic beginning at the end of the winter season which is notorious for lower ridership and revenue for a large number of systems. The promise of better weather is the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel for most bikeshare operators however this was not to be with an unplanned pandemic starting at the end of March, otherwise known as the beginning of ‘Peak Season’ for most.
Systems that arenot tied to a PPP (Public-Private Partnership) agreement have paid a higher price as other revenue systems are impacted. Sponsors are either pulling out of agreements or becoming nervous to start/renew their offering removing another financial safety net that supports the day-to-day costs of operating these systems.
What comes next is the shift from survival to strategy.
Given the unchanged requirement for cities to transform to ensure a more sustainable future and allow its citizens to move efficiently & economically, bikeshare systems will recover.
In reality, the crisis could be the metaphorical battery added to the simple shared-bike, that accelerates changes in user behaviour, policy, funding and infrastructure as already demonstrated in cities across the world.
For operators, the imperative to provide reliable, accessible, and affordable systems with minimal funding and resource availability remains. With initial impacts of the pandemic being established the question still remains:
What comes next?
Fortunately, the longer-term impacts of COVID-19 on bikeshare operators will be released next week, and it looks positive.
My personal thanks to each of the bikesharing operators for their valuable contributions to this article.
