Is Citi Bike getting better at balancing? Next nice day should tell the tale

This  past week might be the start of a remarkable turnaround. Or it might be that New Yorkers prefer snow over humidty. Can’t wait for the numbers from next pleasant weekday.

Bike-share cities see rise in cyclist head injuries

An excerpt 

In the first study of its kind, researchers from Washington State University and elsewhere found a 14 percent greater risk of head injuries to cyclists associated with cities that have bike share programs. In fact, when they compared raw head injury data for cyclists in five cities before and after they added bike share programs, the researchers found a 7.8 percent increase in the number of head injuries to cyclists.

Radical change underway in Brooklyn rebalancing efforts

We’re witnessing a radical change in Citi Bike’s rebalancing efforts in Brooklyn. Fully 81 percent of the NotSpots this week are full stations.  For the quarter, full stations in Brooklyn account for just 11 percent of all NotSpots.

And these stations are staying nonproductive longer than average  -- 6.6 hours vs. 4.6 hours for the quarter.

It’s such a dramatic change in the established pattern that it must be part of a new rebalancing strategy.

Our theory is this:

• Stations that stay full for long periods of time are the most benign of NotSpots. The app tells you at the outset not to go there.
• So riders choose the next best station and those next  bests fill up more rapidly, potentially preventing an empty station later in the day.

Meanwhile, there’s mounting evidence that Citi Bike is getting more aggressive about rebalancing some Brooklyn’s chronic NotSpots.

Let us escort you back to the corner of DeKalb & Vanderbilt in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill. Faithful followers of this blog will remember our 14-day chronicle of the bike station there. After a rebalance, the station emptied every weekday morning and stayed empty for hours, ending only when a rainstorm allowed it to refill.

Check out the top screenshot, taken Tuesday at 11 am. It shows the usual pattern, nearly emptying at 9 am. But this time a rebalance crew arrived with about 10 bikes.

The second screenshot, taken June 3 at 4 pm shows DK&V going NotSpot at 8 am and a crew arriving an hour later, again with about 10 bikes.

We’ve seen this aggressive rebalancing happen on other occasions; we’ve just neglected to take a screenshot. And we’ve seen it happen at other stations in Brooklyn and in Manhattan that were suffering from chronic inattention.

This could be really good news.

Extraordinarily good start to morning rush

At 8:30 am Wednesday, 17 NotSpots -- 12 empty, five full. Best non-weather morning since Friday, April 17.

Record low Notspots - 2 - during Monday's thunderstorms

We recorded a record low two Citi Bike empty stations at 11:30 am Monday. If it weren't for the thunder, you could have heard the choir sing in almost perfect harmony.

Comptroller weighs in on how Citi Bike should move forward

An excerpt

Citi Bike should explore incentives for people making reverse commutes that have the effect of rebalancing the system (for instance, riding to Penn Station during the morning rush or away from Penn Station during the evening rush). Paris' bike-share system offers riders 15 free minutes of ride time in exchange for returning a bike to certain stations in outage-prone areas.

Week 22 Summary

MONDAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

WEEK 22

49

WEEK 22

33

WEEK 22

41

WEEK 22

16*

WEEK 22

Week 22 came in at a NotSpot 34, the best performance in seven weeks. Even though the numbers  were undoubtedly helped by Thursday’s morning rain, we have a growing sense that the system operators are becoming more aggressive about balancing stations.

For example, check out the list of Brooklyn’s Top Ten NotSpots. There are only seven stations that were down for ten or more hours. First time we’ve seen that happen.

• During Thursday's rain the number of empty stations dropped to five, making a tie for the record low.