I’m a big Citibike user in NYC. I take it to and from work sometimes. I take it to and from the ferries a lot. And I use it to get twenty or thirty blocks in 5-10 mins when I don’t have the time to walk it.
But one thing I don’t like about Citibike is the anxiety around having an empty docking spot at your preferred destination kiosk. If there are no empty docks, you have to go to the nearest one in search of an empty dock. I’ve sometimes had to try three or four kiosks which is very frustrating.
Here in Shanghai, they do things a bit differently, and I think a bit better.
The bike share bikes are everywhere that we’ve been in Shangahi but they don’t dock in kiosks. They just lock up when you end your ride and the next person unlocks them with an app on their phone.
Here are what the bikes look like when they are waiting for someone to take them out.
Sometimes they are lined up almost like a Citibike kiosk.
And sometimes they are just dropped off a bit more randomly.
And here is the QR code you read into an app on your phone to get the code to unlock the bike.
I sure hope that the NYC Citibike system moves to this approach as soon as practical. It would make the system a lot better.
