BikeShareNYC

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Citi Bike steadily recovering from post-snowstorm station crash

As the storm began during the Monday morning commute, Citi Bike announced it was suspending rebalancing efforts. Instead, its crews concentrated on getting bikes out of stations exposed to the wrath of snowplows either to off-street stations or back to the shops.

That reduced the available bike count from the pre-storm level by about 200 to 1765 on Tuesday afternoon. Given last winter’s experience, when bikes at many stations were entombed for weeks under plowed snow turned to ice, that seemed to be the prudent way to go.

On Monday at 7 pm, as the storm neared, Citi Bike shut down the entire system -- a first, in step with the rest of the city’s transit systems. Service resumed at 10:30 Tuesday morning as the snow turned to flurries.

Throughout the storm, the number of operating stations remained constant at a normal level of 326 out of 330. Then whammo! Sometime Tuesday evening or early Wednesday 65 stations conked out. That took the available bike count down to 1400 on Wednesday at 8:30 am, by far the lowest ever since we began tracking in January 2014.

The event eclipsed the previous system crash of Dec. 3, 2014 when a telecommunications glitch took out more than 50 stations and 800-plus bikes.

The system steadily recovered through Friday, although 14 more stations crashed before Saturday morning.

Here’s what Citi Bike said Thursday morning on Facebook concerning its recovery efforts:

Since the snow stopped falling on Tuesday, our teams have been working around the clock to reboot stations and shovel the 8 inches of snow we did get. 75% of stations have been totally cleared of snow so far and we are on schedule to complete snow removal today. There are still some stations that are in queue to be serviced (20). Please check the app for live station updates before starting a trip.

Another encouraging indicator of Citi Bike’s performance is how the NotSpot Index progressively improved after the storm.

About the NotSpot Index

Yes, Week 4 is the first week of the new year in the green zone but we can’t make too much of it. Because of the snowstorm that started Monday, only two days contributed to the data, Thursday and Friday.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Snowstorm shutters 20% of Citi Bike system

When the temp is only 20 degrees, this may be more of an interesting milestone than a transportation crisis but…

This morning, 69 Citi Bike stations are out of service -- more than 20 percent of the system. On top of that, at 8:30 am, 52 stations were empty and one was full. That renders more than a third of the system unusable, by far the highest number we’ve ever seen.

This may indicate a more managed response to snow than last year when Citi Bike admitted it left far too many bikes in the stations in January. A record 5433 bikes were available on Jan 17, 2014. The bikes subsequently got plowed under and many suffered damaged as a result.

Whatever the case, there are fewer Citi Bikes available this morning -- 1400 at 8:30 am -- than at any time since we’ve been tracking system performance at the beginning of 2014. There were 2900+ bikes available before the storm hit.

Citi Bike has pledged to get the fleet back to pre-storm levels over the next couple of days.

9:30 am update: Citi Bike, in a Facebook post, says the storm knocked 30 stations offline. That doesn’t explain what happened to the other 39 it reported to be out of service at 8:30 am. Could be that those stations are operational but plowed-in.

Good luck getting a bike in Brooklyn this morning. Gray stations are those out of service.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

About the NotSpot Index

Friday, January 23, 2015

Fleet size drops to record low as Operation Overhaul begins

Fleet size at the end of December -- the number of bikes on the streets -- was the lowest monthly figure since the system opened. The system operators admitted leaving too many bikes on the street last winter -- fleet size was 6,499 in December 2013. And Citi Bike has pledged to use this winter to overhaul every one of its bikes.

Source: NYC Bike Share monthly reports

This winter, Citi Bike riders are taking shorter trips

This winter, Citi Bike riders are traveling shorter distances than last. In December, the average trip was 1.41 miles, the lowest monthly number yet recorded. In December 2013 the average was 1.52. Highest average trip was in the system’s early day’s, July 2013’s 1.97 miles.