Simplifying Management Matters for a Healthy Bike Share Scheme

Operating a Bike Share Scheme involves managing complex logistics in a constantly changing environment. Cities offer new challenges every day that need to be overcome. No two days are likely to be the same with transportation playing a central role in how citizens experience a city.

For Bike Share Scheme operators, simplifying how they manage their schemes is crucial for their success. The complexities that come with distribution and management of bikes across a city can be resource-intensive while not delivering an optimised rider experience. This is a pain-point for many operators and as schemes grow they become difficult to manage.

When bikes are efficiently distributed across a scheme, it ensures that citizens can access bikes and docks when they need them, drives ridership growth, and ensures the overall health of the scheme. By focusing on simplifying the management of a Bike Share Scheme, operators can benefit from:

• Cost efficiencies
• Effective resource management
• Easy scalability
• Faster decision making

At Stage Intelligence, we use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help operators focus on simplicity and maximise the potential of their Bike Share Schemes. Our BICO platform gives operators recommendations on where to distribute Bikes using AI. It uses data from across the scheme to recognise where bikes should be placed based on thousands of criteria all in real-time.

Through a simple mobile app distribution trucks are told where to go to pick bikes up while managers at a central office have a full view of the scheme.  This reduces time dedicated to decision-making while increasing visibility into docks, bikes and distribution trucks. It puts valuable data into the hands of the operator.

Operators can gain cost and resource efficiencies as distribution of staff, bikes and other resources are optimised to reduce cost and time wastage. This provides the building blocks for scalability and the growth of the scheme.

Effective management should always look to combine all these elements and deliver transparency and data that is easy to consume. This enables operators to analyse and predict various aspects of the schemes and implement decisions faster.

For Bike Share Schemes in particular, effective management can determine the success of the entire program. The common misconception is that all it takes is an investment in bikes and the provision of docking stations for a scheme to work. But simple and effective management is behind every successful scheme around the world.

The outcome of a simplified and easy to understand management model is a healthy Bike Share Scheme that has maximised efficiencies and optimised operations.

To find out more about how Stage Intelligence uses Artificial Intelligence to simplify management for Bike Share Scheme operators, please contact tom.nutley@stageintelligence.co.uk

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Introducing Version 10 of BICO Distribution Services

At Stage, we are continually updating and refining our BICO, logistics system for Bike Share Scheme operators. We listen to our customers and proactively develop the platform to better meet the needs of operators. It is important that the platform continues to evolve and change as we find new ways to use data and put Artificial Intelligence (AI) to work for our customers.

We developed a new version of BICO to simplify management and improve usability for operators. Version 10 delivers improvements focused on:

• Console usability
• Bug fixes
• Android app stability

With Version 10, field operatives benefit from full access to BICO distribution services with the improved Android app. The BICO RESTful API v2.0 has been re-engineered to improve communication resilience and improve efficiency across high latency mobile networks.

The new version focuses on simplifying usage for operators with enhanced map views. Users can customise their default view from any one of the available options and declutter it through a custom Google map style. The view also shows ad-hoc jobs in a different colour to improve visibility for users.

In previous versions, stations with poor usability were all under the same red icon. To improve this, in the new version, we use multiple colours to represent the status of the stations and whether it is too full or too empty.

In our growing efforts to provide additional functionality and future extendibility of the system, we have implemented the New Service Point view to replace the old Docking Station View. The new view makes it possible to filter or search service points and pull up all the information that BICO holds about that specific point which may be amended by the user.

These key changes are implemented with the user in mind and how the system can deliver enhanced usability and a customised view to each individual user. Field operators gain better visibility of the entire Bike Share Scheme and makes managing this process simple with clear map views and warning indications. Simple management is the key to success and growth of Bike Share Schemes.

At Stage, we are always looking to use the latest technology to provide the best possible solutions in logistics in cycle sharing programs. This version update builds on our dedication to improve our services that impact both our customers and their end users.

To find out more about BICO Version 10, please contact tom.nutley@stageintelligence.co.uk

Putting Cycling at the Centre of Active Transport in London

London is putting cycling front and centre of its campaign to deliver smarter, greener and more efficient transport.

In August, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan shared his vision for the transforming transport in London. He wants the capital city to be a place of ‘active transport’ and is working to make the city greener, smarter and easier to navigate.

Following this announcement, Transport for London (TfL) awarded a new £79.7 million Cycle Hire contract to Bike Share Scheme operator Serco, which includes the development of lighter, more comfortable and more maneuverable bikes. Serco will continue to maintain and distribute the fleet of Santander Cycles until 2022.

Cycling has already taken a major role in commuter life in London. There is a fleet of 11,500 Santander Cycles in London and TfL says that there are over 610,000 bike trips a day made in the city, well over double the figure of the early 2000s.

In 2000, central London’s roads during the morning rush hour were populated by seven times as many cars as bikes. This ratio has now dropped to nearly two to one, leading TfL to predict that bikes will outnumber cars within a few years.

Khan recognises the potential and popularity of cycling within London, and has created a campaign for enhancing the cycling experience in London. He has agreed to increase the TfL budget spend on cycling and has given the go ahead on continuing the build of the cycle super highway. He wants London to be a leader in supporting cycling and show the rest of the world that London understands how to deliver active and green transport.

Khan is dedicated to supporting cycling across London and is working on a number of ways to make this happen. One of the best ways to support cycling in London is to focus on driving usage in its Bike Share Scheme. More users mean less cars on the road, fewer traffic jams, lower emissions and greatly improves public health through physical activity.

London can grow its Bike Share Schemes by focusing on making it even more user friendly. The happier riders are the more uptake Bike Share Schemes will incur, and as a result the more active London will become.

At Stage Intelligence we use Artificial Intelligence to simplify the distribution of bicycles in Bike Share Schemes. When Bike Share Schemes are properly distributed and made easy-to-use, customer satisfaction increases. Bike Share Scheme optimisation can effectively help transform the London transport experience. We think that Khan’s support in bettering cycling in London is a great place to begin in bringing his vision to life.

To find out more about Stage Intelligence’s technology and how it can assist in making the distribution in Bike Share Schemes as efficient as possible please visit our website: http://bit.ly/2bl1cbH

Version 6 of BICO is released.

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Bike Share SLA

BICO v6 Supports usability measures for cycle scheme performance

Version 6 provides additional map views in the BICO operator console to help operators to make optimal logistics decisions.

These new map views helps operators visualise the logistics task in more dimensions than the standard map view and helps to support more user oriented service level agreements.

EXISTING VIEW – Station Status View

The BICO console has always had the Empty Full Station Status map view that highlights the empty and full status of stations on a map.

This view shows how BICO supports and optimises scheme performance for traditional service level agreements such as docking station Empty / Full measures and penalties.

NEW VIEWS IN VERSION 6

Two new map views have been added to Version 6; Usability & Unpreparedness these views support additional scheme performance measures of Usability.

Usability view

Usability is a measure of scheme performance that Stage Intelligence has developed as a method of efficiently servicing zones within a cycle hire scheme.

The usability measure focuses on the user experience, so that with a defined walking distance there is access to a docking station to hire or park.

Usability stops the over servicing or under servicing of areas/zones.

Unpreparedness View

This view is similar to the standard view except that the unpreparedness view shows more detail behind the level of empty full.

This view is particularly useful to help identify potential problems in zones before they become a problem and helps the operator take pre-emptive action.

This view also demonstrates the predictive nature of BICO.