Ford GoBikes Contract with SF begin threatened by Startups

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Ford GoBike Contract with SF Being Threatened by Startups

There are a lot of bike sharing startups and many are working to cash in on a new trend, stationless bike sharing. A typical bike-sharing program has several bike parking stations throughout a city. This is the model Ford GoBike uses in San Francisco and surrounding areas. Stationless bike sharing is, well, what it sounds like. The bike sharing model gets rid of the bike kiosk and puts an electronic lock and GPS on each bike.

The benefit of a stationless bike is a customer can go straight to their location and not worry about locking the bike up at a kiosk; which could be blocks away from the customers intended location.

This ease of use is what helped Chinese bike share programs to balloon in users last year, but their success was not without a hang-up. Although user ridership grew rapidly it lead to the scene of mass piles of bikes in Chines cities like Shenzhen. This is something that has still not been solved. and San Francisco took note.

Since the release of the smart bike in China and its rapped growth, San Francisco has implemented several strict laws around bike sharing and requires stationless bike share programs to file a permit with the city.

The city is very serious about enforcing this new requirement. their resolve was tested recently when Bluegogo tried releasing bikes in the city without permission. a few weeks later all bikes had been removed.

For those who have applied it may be months until they hear an answer. The city is currently in a contract with FordGo Bike. The contract gives FordGo Bike sole access to several areas in and around San Francisco. Depending on the stipulations and wording in the contracts the companies may or may not be allowed to bring stationless bikes to the majority of San Francisco.

Most impotently tho is how citizens are being affected by the handling of bike sharing and the border transportation network in San Francisco. Under ideal conditions, the City and FordGo Bike would have already expanded the network throughout the city allowing for easy bike transportation through the city. For information on the topic see the following links and for a look at what people are saying check out a few posts below.


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