The duty recently reported on the frustrations experienced in Montreal by BIXI users who too often face empty stations (“The success of Bixi creates frustrations”, July 8).
The problem comes from the fact that the movements of users between stations are not balanced. Most users travel from the Plateau or Rosemont to the city center at the start of the day and in the opposite direction at the end of the day. This imbalance is manifested by empty or full stations depending on the sector or the time of day.
For several years, Bixi has been trying to remedy the situation by moving bikes from full stations to empty stations by truck. According to Christian Vermette, General Manager of Bixi Montreal, a dozen trucks are busy between downtown and the Plateau and can move between 400 and 500 bikes per hour.
While the idea of transporting bicycles by truck may seem paradoxical, it is also very expensive and relatively inefficient, especially in times of labor and even truck shortages, as Bixi management realizes.
It seems that a solution of an economic nature could help considerably. If Bixi adopted dynamic pricing based on supply and demand for bicycles at users’ departure and arrival stations, there would be a way to significantly reduce the imbalance between stations, which would reduce the need for bicycle transport. by truck.
For example, a user traveling from the city center to the Plateau in the morning could benefit from a reduced price or even a subsidy. On the other hand, the user moving in the opposite direction at the same time would pay much more.
By reducing imbalances between stations and thus the movement of bicycles by truck, this dynamic pricing would reduce Bixi’s operating costs. It would also have certain environmental benefits in addition to facilitating traffic sometimes slowed down by Bixi trucks.
Obviously, such pricing would require an initial programming investment to adapt the application to the introduction of variable (smart) pricing. But, in the long term, wouldn’t this investment be profitable — especially since the program developed could no doubt be exported to other cities that use bike sharing?
Such dynamic pricing has often proven its worth: for resources such as water or electricity, for parking meters (e.g. San Francisco), for taxi trips (Uber), or even for congested road access ( London, Stockholm), etc.
Bixi would demonstrate innovation, efficiency and leadership by adopting such a measure.