I wonder how much fleet management could reduce the variance in bicycle usage. Does the rebalancing algorithm treat the bikes as distinguishable or indistinguishable? As in, are CaBi employees told which bikes to pick up and where each one should be moved to, or simply how many?
Certainly maintenance flags are tied to specific bikes. If a particular bike is rarely used, should that also eventually trigger a maintenance flag, even if no user has done so? Or if a bike is disproportionately returned quickly? For instance, when I go up to a bike on the dock but have difficulty loosening the saddle-adjust lever, I’ll just move on to another bike without flagging it.
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