Rebalancing – Who monitors?

[trailrunner]

I used to rely on CaBi for the last leg of my commute. The station I used was often out of bikes. I used to send reports but I got the impression they did not care one bit.

[RideTheWomble]

I’ve had trouble, too. The other day, I needed a bike at Langston Blvd and N Woodstock St., but there were zero bikes there. I went down the hill to W&L High School, but there were zero bikes there.

I tweeted at Cabi, and they replied with cheery gratefulness that I’d helped them out. They said they’d notify their rebalancing team.

I think the reply was more PR than action.

I just checked those two stations. 1 bike at Langston and N. Woodstock, and 1 bike at W&L. That doesn’t make me feel like there’s a huge new emphasis on rebalancing.

It feels like fewer resources are being allocated to rebalancing since Lyft took over as operator of the system. It’s too bad, because I used the HECK out of Cabi back when I thought I could rely on it.

[Steve O]

Try sending an email to BikeArlington.

[peterw_diy]

@RideTheWomble 219944 wrote:

I’ve had trouble, too. The other day, I needed a bike at Langston Blvd and N Woodstock St., but there were zero bikes there. I went down the hill to W&L High School, but there were zero bikes there.

I tweeted at Cabi, and they replied with cheery gratefulness that I’d helped them out. They said they’d notify their rebalancing team.

I think the reply was more PR than action.

Absolutely. They don’t need random people tweeting at them to identify empty stations. They’ve had good realtime system data for years … data that shows 46 CaBi stations currently have zero bikes of either type available.

[RideTheWomble]

@peterw_diy 219948 wrote:

Absolutely. They don’t need random people tweeting at them to identify empty stations. They’ve had good realtime system data for years … data that shows 46 CaBi stations currently have zero bikes of either type available.

Right. I’ve used the API. The information is available, and there’s a large community of developers who have done extensive analysis of the data to identify trends and do predictions. I have no hard evidence the new operator is, “optimizing,” their rebalancing operation by just not spending a lot doing it, so I can’t support the allegation. My anecdata sure makes it feel that way, though.

[Author]

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