New York’s Bike Share Program Needs a Serious Debugging Ten months ago, when Mayor Bloomberg announced Citi Bike would be delayed, heexplained why: “The software doesn’t work. Duh,” he said on his weekly radio show. “Until it works, we’re not going to put it out until it does work.” Two weeks after the system launched, complaints of software failures are rife. And though the city refuses to release specific information on outages, a WNYC analysis indicates on any given day, about ten percent of docks have been failing. Moreover, the city had ample warning the software was buggy — and launched anyway. As WNYC points out, that 10% is an estimate based on their own jury-rigged analysis—which they had to carry out because New York City has refused to answer media questions about the number of down stations, customer complaints and any other indications of system problems. But it fits with my personal experience, as well as those reported by others. Bikeshare is all about being convenient at the margin: being able to leave your house that much later, and arrive at your destination that much earlier, because the bikes are just sitting there waiting for you to use them. If you can’t be sure that you’re going to be able to rent one of the bikes, because the system is glitchy and often entire stations just don’t work, or if you’re worried that the stations near your destination won’t accept returns, then all that convenience simply disappears. So this is a very important issue. I hope it gets fixed soon, but I have to admit I’m a little bit pessimistic.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 21:51:14 +0000
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