Governance of Dockless Bicycle Sharing

Abstract

This research provides insight into coping with the appearance of dockless bicycle sharing systems (BSS) in a municipal context. Due to technological developments like GPS integration and smart locks, BSS evolved towards the latest development of dockless shared bicycles. Most BSS companies were from Asian origin and had a disruptive impact on cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam in the summer of 2017. The introduction of multiple bicycle sharing systems caused nuisance and raised questions about the added value for society of this new innovation in urban mobility. The goal of the study is exploring applicable and tangible governance options for municipalities to cooperate with or regulate operators and implement a BSS in their municipality. Important in this respect is the fit with the values of society to establish city objectives, but also to take into account the functionality of a dockless BSS. Dutch municipalities struggle to cope with BSS. They lack knowledge about the factors of influence in the systems. This is needed for considering regulation or acceptance of BSS by the public in general. Dockless BSS has proven to behave highly disruptive and this causes friction between public values and private interests. Therefore cities need means to evaluate and cope with BSS initiatives. Research concerning BSS and public values in a high-cyclists country context is also lacking, therefore the Netherlands as the geographical scope is an interesting addition to prior literature. Therefore the question that is raised in this research is: How can Dutch municipalities cope with the disruptive innovation of dockless bicycle sharing in order to resolve the conflicts between public and private values?The research method used consists of an extensive literature review. Which provided a theoretical foundation on the themes of sharing platforms, mobility and governance in relation to dockless bicycle sharing. It was found that present sharing schemes have a product-service economy appearance because no peer-to-peer element exists. The free-floating schemes provide more flexibility to the users towards the origin and destination of their trips in comparison to docking systems. In relation to governance, authorities have three main ways to govern: prohibit/enforce, pricing and soft regulation. These are used to develop coping measures in the design phase of governance strategies. Together with findings from subject-related meetings, the initial system overview is constructed, which clarified the causal relations between the pressure on public space in relation to the number of bicycles, utilization rates and a number of operators.These insights resulted in a list of topics to discuss with municipal experts in the field of BSS. Nine experts of municipalities throughout the Netherlands were interviewed. Data of a dockless operator and the private values of operators substantiated the findings of the interviews.Results of trip data indicated that the dockless system was for 85% used by inhabitants and that use during the day was highly similar to foreign BSS usage. From the interviews with municipalities, important public values were identified. Public values are the needs and wishes for the short and long term, pursued by authorities and can be abstract and operational. The conflicts between these public values and the private values are the problems of the municipality to cope with.Four dominant conflicts between public values and private values were identified: Public space (quality, control & no commercialization). The public space (quality, control and no commercialization) is highly valued. Municipalities struggle to control the quality of public space without commercialization of this public space. The impact of BSS on this public domain can conflict quality requirements and enforcement of wrongly parked bicycles. Since operators try to maximize their freedom to use public space, this can provide conflicts.Additional costs for municipalities not be covered by inhabitants if a commercial company uses the public domain as their point of issue for their shared bicycles. If extra costs are made for parking spots or enforcement, it is considered unfair that the municipality covers these costs. Operators currently do not contribute to municipal expenses for enforcement of the wrongly parked bicycles.If a BSS is allowed in a municipality the public desires high quality of bicycles. Since there is limited space for the number of bicycles and operators, the present BSS needs to fulfil the quality requirements of potential users. The first systems introduced in the Dutch cities did not meet the standards of Dutch bicycles and the quality was therefore not sufficient in the eyes of potential users. The bicycle sharing schemes should add value in addition to the current mobility options. It should provide flexibility for the user, but also be useful in relation to public transport. The introduction of BSS is not automatically introduced in relation to public transport. In addition, train stations are often limited in parking space or forbidden for bicycles, therefore operators cannot use this space as a point of issue. The conflict exists in the balance between flexibility for the operator to provide a positive business-case and create a good service for users and become a desired addition to the current mobility options by authorities. The private values identified from an interview with a BSS operator and public hearings were: make a profit, limit company costs, maximize the number of users, maximize the number of bicycles, maximize freedom to use public space, limited openness to competitors and municipality, commercialization of public space and collection of user data. These values do provide conflicts with public values, therefore coping measures should be introduced to regulate the BSS market.Based on these conflicts sets of coping measures are designed per public value.Public space (Quality, control & no commercialization): Determine minimal usage of a bicycle per day, Restrain commercialization of public space through legislation, Require accelerometers in the bicycles to identify fallen bicycles, Introduce a Universal logo for bicycle sharing, Require good behaviour incentives, Enforce geofences, Create incentives to have bicycles moving, Require a communication channel for all complaints, Ensure even spread of the bicycles and Require openness in trip data.Costs for the municipality: Arrange parking facilities for the period the number of bicycles in the city is higher, these costs for extra facilities can be calculated in permit fees or with other forms of contracts. In addition, make handling wrongly parked bicycles at least break even. This means that costs for removing wrongly parked bicycles should be paid by the operators. Quality of the bicycles: Establish quality standards and assessments before introduction, Ensure sustainability of the produced bicycles and monitor the quality performance during use.Mobility (Public transport addition & flexibility): Allocate space for BSS near mobility hubs, for instance near public transport locations. Force integration of BSS with PT offer by making it part of a concession.This results in some recommendations: all issues of concern with respect to dockless BSS must be taken into account. Public values provide a good starting point to explore municipal needs. These objectives for the particular municipality can be defined upfront, so before operators are introduced. To guarantee integration with other modes of transport, postulate conditions for the addition to the present mobility system. To limit municipal costs, transaction costs for individual municipalities can be reduced by execution of certifications or share knowledge about operators and the systems at the national level. In addition, concrete enforcement should be explored. The actual implementation is subject to local context, the measures provided are therefore not one size fits all, but can be used as a set of options for municipalities. The analysis of public values in contrast to private values in order to find conflicts regarding the introduction of BSS proofed to be valuable for research like this. It can provide insights into the contribution to the mobility system in cities and possibly contribute to an alternative that can be offered to currently available personal mobility. The findings of this research are generalizable in the Dutch context. Dutch municipalities of various sizes and regions were interviewed for this study. During interviews, a lot of similar issues were presented by the interviewees, which lead to the saturation of answers. Besides, foreign cities can benefit from the insights if similar public values conflict with private values. Constraints in time and resources limit the number of municipalities that could be taken into account for this research. The researcher was also dependent on experts that are willing to talk about the subject. Further research should conduct on gaining better insight in usability patterns of users, this requires openness of data by the operators.