Dutch person here. I just want to say how refreshing and enjoyable your videos are. No ego, no snarky comments about other places, no hot takes, always clear, nuanced, positive, and well thought-through. You really do seem to be lovely people! With regards to the topic, at the moment, our government is failing at some pretty essential functions. Local and national government is often understaffed and overburdened. A government can only do so much and ours desperately needs to fix numerous far more pressing issues. I want it to fully focus on improving essential public services. As you say, it's on the bottom of the priority list. Could be nice to have, but not a necessity. It would also have a hefty up-front cost to roll this out across the nation. Bike theft is a big issue in big cities like Amsterdam, less so in other places. Ive had like one bike stolen in my entire life? One fun note, many Dutch people can perform basic maintenance on a bike by themselves, especially fixing flat tires and putting the chain back on the gears.

I'm Dutch and have used bikeshare systems in places like Berlin, Salt Lake City, Stockholm and especially Łódź (Poland), since I was there the most. What really hit home was the freedom it gave: not having to remember where you parked your bike and being constantly aware that you have to get back to that location to pick it up again. Such liberation!

BIXI was super useful (and fun) when I visited Montreal, so I decided to get the year pass for the Santander Cycles now that I'm in London (UK). People are really surprised when a tell them I paid £90 for unlimited rides (student discount, £120 normally) since all other forms of commuting here are far more expensive. For my commute, it's far cheaper than any other form of transport (other than walking) and faster too (yes, even when compared to the tube, bus, and car). I could buy my own bike, sure, but I don't have much space for one and the peace of mind of knowing I'll never have my bike stolen is so so so wonderful.

I actually do enjoy bikeshares sometimes, especially in Helsinki, but after living in Amsterdam (with a swapfiets) it makes sense for them to have their own bikes. The difference is that EVERYONE uses bikes, not just some people. The fleet and storage for bikeshares would be insane and I'd be frequently concerned about not enough capacity in high traffic areas. That being said, it would be useful to some people at some times, especially for visitors

This is why I use a unicycle in combination with public transportation here in the Netherlands. Since you can bring them into stores or any OV form (without the bicycle fee) have the same convenience as a folding bike, but without the folding hassle. More people should give it a try and it supports local circus clubs and circus festivals since not everyone will be able to learn it without. 😢😮😅 + it's a fun and currently rare sight to see someone like me riding in the rain on a unicycle, an umbrella and their arms full of groceries.😊

I live in the Netherlands and would absolutely see the point in having bike share if I ever used public transportation inside of my city. But I never do. I’m always going everywhere by bike. If I do take transit, it’s going to be a train, in which case there’s always an OV-fiets waiting for me, and I will be taking a train back later that day.

I'm a European and take bike share for granted while traveling through most countries. I was shocked how difficult it was to get to use a bike in the Netherlands when I visited. In most cities on the continent I can set up an account in the local one or even use the same app and account I use at home and get riding in minutes for pennies.

The multi modal use at 8:40 you describe is exactly what I think many people can't appreciate if they have not yet tried it. While I own an electric folding bike I way more use the non-electric bike share here in Nuremberg. In my commute it is the fastest way to get around when using it combined with a subway ride.

As a Singaporean, bike share had a rocky start in 2017, leaving a mess everywhere as many venture capital companies imploded under a dockless system. But nowadays it has become a successful and convenient way for many people to commute on bicycle, since for the end-user, it is as if the bike can teleport everywhere. The system works well enough that from my knowledge, Anywheel, the company which runs the biggest bike share operation in Singapore, is now breaking even. Their bikes are single speed, but they are fast and robust. Many of our docking stations are also very simple: a painted yellow box and a QR code on already existing concrete pavement, some of them don't even have racks at all! You won't run out of bike parking most of the time, since you can always pack the bikes closer to one another.

As a dutchie working at the regional government on cycling I really like your take on bicycle sharing and the flaws of the OVfiets scheme. I guess the biggest problem of making a working bikeshare system in NL is the needed scale - for the system to work it should be a region- or better nationwide system and with a thousands of bikes in every city at least. I would not give up on using my own bike in my hometown - but in the city where I work (Haarlem) and where I frequently visit (Alkmaar & Amsterdam) I would be awesome to use a cheap bike share system.

3:38 yes! Bike theft was my first thought as well. I’ll almost always prefer taking my own bike somewhere just because I’m used to it and have it setup the way that I like. But if I plan to leave my bike locked up somewhere for a long period of time and am worried about theft than bike share is a great option. It’s also awesome for flexibility. Like if I meet up with a friend somewhere and they don’t ride, but then we want to go to a second place which is a short ride away…we’ll they can easily just grab a bike from the bike share and off we go!

I originally wrote this a reply somewhere, but that might get buried more easily, so I'll put it up here, too. If this were to become popular and the company offering wants to assure availability of both bikes AND empty docking spots for drop-off, the amount of bikes and docking points needed would be insane. A medium sized city would need maybe 10.000 bikes seeded throughout the city and 10.000 or more EMTPY docking points for those people to park them, plus probaby a few thousand parked bikes for people arriving early before the influx of the main rush hour. (big cities like Amsterdam would need exponentially more bikes and spots probably) You'd also need a few thousand docking points at every high school once students decide that your bike-share scheme is a good idea. And those thousands would also need to be seeded near their houses to make it useful, so you'd hundreds of seed points with maybe a dozen bikes each (plus empty spots for anyone arriving with an extra bike). A counterpoint to how awesome it is even in non-Dutch places: when my brother and sister visited Berlin, they reported that the bike share was great, but once they wanted to park, the couldn't find an empty docking station where they wanted to go and had to park 3 docking spots further along. This made them late for dinner, which in their case, was a minor annoyance. But if you want it to commute, I don't thing managers or teachers would like it if their people keep coming in late because they couldn't find a place to park. My point is: if you want such a scheme to stay popular once it actually gets popular, you need to ensure availability, otherwise you'll become knows as the company with that "nice idea, but there's never any bikes because they're all in use (or people can't park because all docking spots are in use)". Like someone else mentioned in another comment: there have been attempts by companies with bike and moped sharing without fixed docking places, where you had to leave it within x meters of a GPS coordinate, but cities ended up with bikes and scooters blocking side-walks (nuisance to able-bodied person, no fun if you're in a wheel-chair or using a walker). I'm sure I thought of more stuff while watching the video, but can't remember all of them. :) Edit: thought of two more points: if you're trying to start this up, you'd logically want any docking spot in a convenient spot for bike parking. That means, you probably have to convince a city to not only remove a current bike parking spot, but also get a local ordinance to prohibit parking any other bikes at your docking points, otherwise they'll buried under privately-owned bikes. Also, once you've somehow managed to scale up to the numbers mentioned above, you probably want to occasionally shuttle some bikes back and forth to maintain availability and prevent overcrowding. For cities like Amsterdam, that would probably mean a fleet of trucks to maintain just the city... Edit2: As for OV-fiets: the only reason that gets around all the problems is because they only operate from the bigger stations, which lets someone keep and eye on them so it doesn't become a mess with the parking. Also, by mandating return to the same spot, you know there will always be parking spots for returning bikes. Like you mentioned: the downside is indeed that you're kinda forced to may daily flat rates, because people will go to where they want to go, do their thing there (work, shop, party, whatever) and then ride back to the station at the end of the day. The €5,00 rate is pretty comparable to a bus trip of the same distance, but with the benefit of not having to walk from the bus station.

From Chicago, I agree with the Dutch. We have bike share (Divvy) in Chicago and I've never used it because it is only located in areas that well served by transit and walking. Biking is more valuable the farther you get from the urban center because there's bigger gaps between rail lines. For someone who lives 2 to 4 miles from their local train station, a $5 rental would be outstanding. One could take the bike home and drop it off at the train station the next morning. That system is easier than building bike share terminals everywhere. One potential issue is that this service could take away bike parking for people who own their own bikes. That would make a lot of people upset. This would need to be rolled out in a thoughtful way.

As a Dutch person, bike shares sound great. I think the reason we don't have it, is mostly because the whole concept of bike share came quite a lot later than when cycling became ubiquitous. That said, I'd love it if we got it at some point, but it really only works in denser areas. The main use I could see is for things like, taking the bus into the city, and then cycling home at night when busses don't run anymore, but that's pointless, since there won't be any stations near my home in an urban area. Other than that, negating the problem of theft, and not having to do maintenance are pretty darn convenient too, but I can see how many people are just happy with their own bikes. I've used the OV fiets a few times, and because it has to "work for everyone", they're rather uncomfortably small bikes, which makes them less appealing.

I am a sceptic of docked systems, but I am moving to a city that has them so maybe it will change my mind :) Karlsruhe has a dock less system that I use quite frequently. As a University student you get 30 mintues free for every ride after that just 50ct/30min(well "free", everyone pays a few euros per term). I think it's really useful because you can be even more spontaneous. For docked systems you need to know where you can return it and the docks at the university would be full every morning. Here I just scan a bike I walk past or check ghe app for bikes nearby. I don't usually see them blocking sidewalks or streets, the only disadvantage of dock less is, some people illegally take them into the house and you can't find the bike you are looking for.

All great reasons for bike share! Calgary has been experimenting with it - and has a LOT of scooters, too. I would love to see bike share integrated into the transit system. A holistic focus on transportation would be great!

A big problem which made bike share companies go away from the Netherlands, were complaints about abadoned rental bike in public space. So a lot of city governments forbidded them. Also, space is a problem you might underestimate. We have very compact city centres which are full of parked bikes. Having racks exclusively for rental bikes, would feel like an unfair claim of public space which could be used for all bikes. Of course, we also can create more underground parking spaces, but that's of course very costly.

Adding in a dutch perspective: I never really considered bike sharing, but this video does show how it has a lot of potential and can potentially be great for a lot of cities. Of course, every city is slightly different, and thus the specifics of how will also be different from city to city, and country to country. So while I do agree that existing bike sharing/renting can be expanded to a lot of benefit, I don't necesarrily think the same exact model as used in Canada will fit the needs for most in the Netherlands as is. For some examples: I myself live in a place that is the border between large town and small city, having a lot of the benefits of good Urban design, but being small enough that all the amenities in town are comfortably in walking or cycling distance. I doubt bike sharing options would really have a lot of space here for stations to pick up and return them. So if I were to visit another city, the current 24 hour model for the OVfiets would cated to exactly this type of visitor. While biketheft is really big in Amsterdam, lots of other cities have put in measures to curb bike theft, and i only lost a bike once, and I'm still not sure if it was stolen, or more likely, confiscated for improper parking. So the bike theft angle doesn't add much appeal either, even when I did live in larger cities. Outside of the direct Randstad, I feel like most cities would not necesarrily benefit from having a bike sharing service that requires dedicated parking stations for them. Especially since a lot of businesses have direct bike parking available already. My own suggestion, if the governments have enough money for it, would be to expand the OV-fiets, while the 5 euros for 24 hours model is useful to me, for people who need it for a regular commute, a cheaper monthly subscription would be a much more appealing option, especially if employers can pay that cost for their employees. Secondly, a lot of cities I've lived in had protected indoors bike parking, One example that could help, is if these also served as pick-up and drop-off points for an OVfiets or similar service. (theoretically these could also work with a new service, but I think OVfiets has a larger chance of making this work, since the dutch government is the sole shareholder in the NS) these parking spots are usually near the city centre, the limit the parking inside it, but since that's often also where a lot of shopping centre's are positioned it would singificantly add viability to such a program. However, I think the big reason why bike sharing is not as popular here, is largely because we have managed to tackle most of the issues that bikesharing would combat, outside of Amsterdam, very few people really are concerned with bike theft. most of us know basic maintenance, and if not bike repair shops are quite common. And parking bikes is currently quite convenient at most destinations, while a bike share system would often require dedicated parking spots specifically only for those bike-share bikes, which I don't think a lot of businesses would see the value investing in currently.

As a Dutch person I indeed have an opinion on bikes :P I think you have a very valid point about the OV fietsen. It often doesn't make sense to rent these for more than a full day. I think it could indeed be replaced by a bike share system instead. Regarding keeping the bikes safe; People either store them in their garage / shed, or when they live in an apartment building, there will be a locked area in the basement/ground floor where people can store their bikes. We do have an option for more long-term renting of bikes in some citiescalled swapfiets, which I believe also operates in Denmark and some parts of germany. They essentially lease bikes to you for a fixed fee of about 30 euros per month and they will do all maintenance on your bike. Whenever something's up you can just send them a message and they will replace your bike with an alternative one. Always love to hear your opinions! You have such great videos 😍😍

I just moved to DC and signed up for the CaBi bikeshare. It is hands down the most convenient way to get around the city. However, it is so good that docks are often empty!

Doesn’t seem that long ago that we went down to Verdun and I pushed you guys to ride that bixi. Cost me $20 getting an eBixi out that long, but at the time I guessed it would be a good investment!

Most people commuting by train have 2 bikes, one at each station. At the moment there are bike sharing programs in some cities, I’ve seen bikes of them. Don’t know if they are successful. The first bike share program in the world was actually Dutch. The so called “witte fietsen plan” by Provo. That was also the start of the anti car movement in the Netherlands. It failed for different reasons, but it is still used in some specific places.

They kinda started the bike share idea with the provo white bicycle plan back in the 60s but only more based. They collected several hundred bikes, painted them white, and left them around the city to be freely used.

Hi, I'm Dutch, and when I first started this video, I must say, I was quite sceptical about the practicality of a bikeshare system for the Netherlands. Now, however, I think you're right and we are missing out. It is a better solution to the last mile problem than the OV-fiets (I've often had to pick people up from the station because 5 euros for a trip from the station to my home and back seems a bit steep). I would mainly use it in other cities than my own, since I already own a bike (which on a per-month basis is still way cheaper than bikeshare, for a bigger upfront cost and the need to store and maintain it yourself). I think it would also lower the need for owning multiple bikes, like carshare services are lowering the need to own a (second) car. Also, I think that you're right on the OV-fiets being available to foreigners. It's a crying shame that it is so hard to obtain an OV-chipkaart. Now, we're making people get throwaway tickets and they cant use the OV-fiets bike rental system. Just make generic cards and slap on a big deposit, to be returned when the card is. The Netherlands still have a lot of opportunities to expand our public transit services. Thank you for your videos!

London has a great bike share system. I see lots of people riding them all the time

This video does an awesome job of highlighting the real superpower of bike share - the one way trip! I own a bike in Toronto, and I use bike share all the time. If had to give up access to bike share or my own bike, I’d give up my bike - the service is that useful

My dad realized he could ride his own bike to the local suburban train station and then get on the train and then use a bike share bike from the dock at the downtown station to get to work and return the bike at the bike dock that’s a block away from the office. He doesn’t need to take his bike on the train (even though they started allowing bikes on all trains recently), and doesn’t need to lock his own bike in downtown where theft is more common. He can also choose to take a bus if it start raining there and a family member can pick him up from the local station if it starts raining here.

I am amazed at how low the subsidies for the bike share are! 68% covered by user fees is much higher than I'd expect

Dutch person here: Bikeshare (and more commonly: Scooter share) actually does exist in many places, sometimes even by multiple providers but they tend to get relatively lightly used and the bikes end up absolutely everywhere they shouldn't be half of the time. Except if you're in a place you don't normally go too with unreasonably poor public transportation (Yes, we do have transport deserts here), they're basically never necessary because everyone who does need them for first/last mile transit, pretty much always already has a bike and because of how common (and cheap) just setting up a trasher bike at your place of destination is, they're rarely needed for that too. The only real situation where I've seen the hype about bikeshare actually emulated here is when public transport companies want to cut cost and they try to present bikeshare as an alternative for passengers who simply lose their connection. It generally doesn't work (even though a few benefit, most passengers just stay away) and provides no actual alternative for the people most reliant on public transport who often either can't handle the extra costs and/or just can't consistently cycle safely to begin with. Given the above, I've got mixed feelings about bikeshare systems. - Especially due to the way they're often used as an argument to destroy public transport under the guise of "increasing mobility".

ive been thrilled to see my US city putting bikeshare stations all over the place. ive utilized it many times now. much cheaper than taking an uber which would be the only viable alternative for certain trips unfortunately many people seem to write it off as a gimmick but its so convenient

In the Netherlands, we also have a private service called Swapfiets: you pay around €20 a month on the most basic plan for a "rental" bike that actually stays in your possession for as long as your subscription continues. You can treat it as basically your own bike: you use it as often as you like, no restrictions, and you can park it anywhere you want. I've been using the same Sawpfiets bike for over a year now and I must say it's a great service. The subscription fees also include maintenance on the bike, and in case it gets too damaged you can swap it for a new one. Also, if it gets stolen, you also get a replacement and only pay a small fine if you can prove it was locked, i.e.: you have the key in your possession (they key can only be pulled out of the lock when it's locked). If you didn't do it, then you pay a full fine, which is the price of the bike itself. I consider it to be superior than the usual bike share services.

I live in Chicago with a Brompton and a Divvy membership. I find it's the perfect combo. I use my Brompton for recreation, grocery shopping, getting around the neighborhood, and going to activities where I know I can bring it right inside. When I'm going out to spend time in the greater part of the city, a mix of Divvy and public transit is the perfect match. I can ride the train there so i don't get sweaty, then ride home for a bit of exercise and to spend some more time outdoors. It is also a great option for live events and theaters where I cannot bring my Brompton inside and definitely would not want to leave it, or any bike, locked up outdoors unsupervised for hours. The ease of bike share works great for going to a movie or concert. The flexibility to pickup a bike almost anywhere and drop it off almost anywhere else opens up so many options in the moment that you just wouldn't think of. It's kind of like "Now you're thinking with portals" but "Now you're thinking with bike share."

Toronto here. Bixi (now called Toronto Bike Share) was at first perplexing but once the rates were tuned and adjusted, and once the critical mass of docks was reached this became absolutely essential last mile transit for my family. I no longer use our personal bikes for commuting. This video is spot on.

I think here in the Netherlands it is also a bit of a chicken and egg situation, due to most people who want to bike already owning a bike initial bike share offerings have a hard time getting of the ground (due to e.g. only being available in a single region/town, to few bikes available. not enough infrastructure to manage those bikes, etc driving up expenses), and this then contributes to the view that bike share are not needed here, or don't fit. (also the few companies that tried often used smartphone apps with no fixed bike stands, meaning people left the bikes just wherever irritating other road users (often pedestrians)). That said I do think a good, nation wide system, could be beneficial, though probably will not happen currently for reason that have not much to do if it is a good idea or not.

Great video. I own multiple bikes, but I’ve never tried the local bike share here in Chicago (Divvy). This video gave me great ideas about how to use it to add flexibility and less stress to my journeys so I will definitely be using it in the future. Thanks!

Thank you for the video, that was very informative !

I think the main problem is that transit to work is mainly one-way two times a day. Thousands go left and nobody is going right kinda thing. Bike share works with circulation and on work days there isn't (hardly) any. We should have mixed workspace and living space up more but we didn't.

My wife and I are in our 60's and live on a 3rd floor Maryland apartment with no elevator. For years we have carried our 30-year-old cheap non-folding, non-electric bikes down and up those stairs every day to visit friends, church, exercise, shopping, and errands all by bicycle. We must be crazy, poor, or both. I'm 6'5" with legs long for my height, she is 4'11" with legs short for her height. The nearest bike-share is 3 miles away. The nearest metro station is about 5 miles away. We lock our bikes with a cable and have never had anything stolen yet. We occasionally pass bike-share stations, but more often we see dead bike-share e-bikes and e-scooters abandoned on trails. The only place we ever see anyone riding bike share bikes is when we ride to downtown DC, and those seem like mostly tourists. Even if there was bike share near us, the bikes would be too big for her and too small for me. Like the Dutch, I fail to see the appeal. Am I missing something?

i use a bike share in the morning to go to the metro station because im usually in a hurry, then when im goingback home in the evening i have more time and usually take a walk

We used to have a few bike share options in Amsterdam, around 6 years ago. It resulted in abandoned bikes everywhere. The municipality has stopped these bike sharing experiments after about 6 months.

Washington DC's Capital BikeShare is growing and becoming more and more useful. I find its price structure a bit weird and and it doesn't really help me specifically. Being stuck way out in the suburbs, it would be a great option to take a bikeshare to the nearest Metro station, especially since buses stop running at like 9PM. They've recently installed a dock at my local Metro station, but there's only one other dock out in this area, and it's not much further away than across a big parking lot, so not much use. Hopefully the expand to be more useful.

I live in Cologne, Germany and we also have a bike share system here run by a private company. However they do it in cooperation with and branded as a service of our local transit authority (under the name KVB Rad). So every person, including tourists, can use it for a fee as long as they have a phone number to sign up for the service. But if you have a public transport subscription with the local transit authority you get an unlimited amount of free 30 minute rides, even back to back on the same bike if you end the ride within their service zone. I do have my own bicycle and use it to commute to work, visit friends etc. as long as the weather is okay. However I still use the bike share system on a regular basis for trips that I would usually not take my own bike for. For example when I go out to have some drinks, I use a shared bike to get to the bar and take transit to get back home later. I also end up using the shared bikes a lot for the last mile after a tram ride. I think the bike share system is a great way to complement our transit services as well as my own bike for certain trips and would not want to miss it anymore

thanks so much for this excellent summary on the pros of bikeshare!

As always, love the videos!

San Francisco's Baywheels system currently removes the e-bike fee if you undock from a dock that has no "classic" bikes listed. Once I learned about this secret discount, I started using the e-bikes more often, opportunistically. I suspect that they're actually transitioning out the classics as time goes on because other parts of the bike fail much more often than the battery. So the effect I'm feeling is that as I continue using the service more and paying my modest $169/year membership, I am getting more mobility: the number of stations expand, the city makes more moves towards cycling infrastructure, and the bikes themselves go faster(which I don't always want, but it is a pleasure to feel them accelerate). I don't feel this same effect with a transit pass, because transit isn't adding capacity in this way, at this rate. While it's easy to end up paying more with a bikeshare by ignoring the per-minute fee, it's also not hard to use it and only pay the base cost. If I bought an e-bike instead, I'd be paying for something like 10 years of membership, plus maintenance costs, risk of theft, etc. I don't think the Netherlands is positioned in the same way, since the networks and bicycle fleets are already there; the appeal would most likely come from seeing the bikeshare as a convenient way to "upgrade" to e-bike.

I've used Bixi in the past, but in all honesty: I prefer to use my own foldable eBike to get around Montreal. The Bixi's are too heavy and often struggle going uphill. Which for me is a dealbreaker since where I live usually requires me to ride uphill.

Great analysis. In my experience so far, Bixi is the best bike share system of any city I've visited. There's just so many stations, so there is always one near your destination. I don't use bike share all that often in my city (I don't have the monthly pass), maybe only a half dozen times a year, but I think the biggest reason is because I live on the first floor and it is easy to get my bike in and out.

The main issue I'd love to see solved with bike share is transport of kids. On my bike I've got children seats (even 2, one in the front, 1 in the back). With bike share I can't transport them. And if they were older I couldn't find children size bikes. Even if my city offered cargo bikes (which I don't think they do) they would be rare and you couldn't reliably find them.

It is not exactly bike share, but in Amsterdam (at least) you can get Swapfiets, recognisable by the blue front tires. I think that mostly students and expats, and other people who do not plan on a permanent stay here, use it. You pay a monthly fee for use of one bike, but the benefit is that the bike is quickly replaced if damaged or stolen and if you have to leave the city, you don't have a bike you need to take with you or otherwise get rid of. For actual bike share, OV fiets really does fill the niche. We have a pretty good (if expensive) public transport so the optimal use case is you use your own bike to go the train or (major) bus station, then at the destination station use the OV fiets to go the final destination, and return.

Side note: It would sure be nice if the vehicles they used to schlep bicycles around between docks & maintenance were electric. That's one of the best use cases for EVs vs ICE.

Great video. My main reservation with Public bike share is the necessity to have docks no more than a few hundred metres apart city wide. I have seen few cities that are committed to that level of service. An additional cost is also the necessity for bike share to be electric in hilly cities. That can lead to hilly cities placing docks further apart. If you have to walk 500 metres over hills to a dock or 800 metres to a metro you will just walk or use your own e mobility device.

You forgot biking to a party, getting hammered, then uber/transit back home.

Minneapolis has been so frustrating when it comes to bikeshare. There used to be a non-profit bikeshare program called Nice Ride, but even then, renting a bikeshare was $2.50 per activation and then a whopping $16/hr (charged by the minute), or $10/hr with a membership. That service never operated during the winter when it would arguably be most useful, but they never came back when spring arrived this year and the non-profit unceremoniously shut down. In its place are private scooter rideshares like Lime (and currently no bikes), which are $1 to unlock and are $23/hr, which at that point is as expensive as getting an Uber/Lyft and basically useless for nearly all trips, especially since many of the biggest trip generators in the city are off-limits to e-scooters anyway. It's confusing, opaque, and wildly overpriced.

I use bike share in a small Irish city. €10 euro a year and first 30 minutes of each ride free which covers 95% of rides. For longer rides I just stop at a the next docking station put it in then take it back out for anther 30 minutes. I think ive only paid an additional 50 cent twice in like 5 years

Bike share is awesome, but I find the lack of decent reliability the biggest disadvantage. In my experience, it's not quite the "guaranteed cycling experience _whenever we want_ " [3:57]. At least in Paris, it is neither guaranteed to find a (functional) bike at any nearby station to start a trip, nor to find a parking space at a nearby station at the end of the trip.

Good video and I do love the bike share in my city, but not mentioning Swapfiets is a bit of a miss. It’s a cheap (€17-20/month) alternative to North America bike share and is in most places. Although, if your bike is stolen, it’s €60. Personally, I would love Swapfiets in the US as well as bike share.

From the Netherlands here, and I do think you have a few great points, they should lower the OV fiets price, and more bike sharing would mean less parking spots are needed. We do have 'Swapfiets' and it is popular amongst locals, but it is rather your own bike and the service just provides it is serviced or swapped when it is broken. Also, the government provides the 'Fietsplan' to many employees, which is a budget of say 750 euro to buy a bike, and every three years iirc you can get another Fietsplan. And yeah, I have had friends over from abroad who would have loved an OV fiets as well.

My wife and I had a date with a friend at a movie theater. She lives in our neighborhood. My wife and I rode Citi Bike (NYC's bike share) to the theater. After the movie, we walked home with our friend because our friend doesn't ride bikes. So we got to ride one way. We can't do that with our own bikes.

As a dutchie who owns one bike, After seeing this video, I see no use for bikeshare for me. Maybe for big cities it has a use if you live small in an urban location, But other than that, nope. Also, the maintenance cost is pretty low. For my bike that I own, I spent less than € 100 over the past 18 years combined on maintenance.

As a Glaswegian who doesn’t live in the Netherlands at all, I have to wonder if converting OV-fiets to a more flexible system might be the answer. Employer coverage could just go to the monthly pass, and the worker would retain the same after-work flexibility in practice. But they wouldn’t need to be locked-up along all the private bikes in the work day, other people could use them as-needed instead. You’d need docks separate from the train stations but it seems the simplest way to get the critical coverage needed to get people actually using the system - something the private network map clearly doesn’t have outside the city centre. I definitely see people using the short-term rental bikes here in Glasgow, though my nearest station is also the train station. But my dad’s taken one for a few hours in a summer visit once, and they’re well-placed for riverside rides and so on.

Awesome video. If it wasn't for bikeshare in Montreal I would honestly never consider biking to places and always choose public transport, walking or cars. I hate having to drag my bike in public transit, I dont like worrying about getting my bike stolen, and just because I want to join my friend by bike, doesnt mean I want to come back by bike many hours later when we're already in another part of the city or it's late and Im tired and would rather take the metro. Honestly, bikeshare is the only reason I'm considering biking to work and places more when I move back to Montreal and I dont think Im the only one. I dont want a private car in the city because of the hassle, and it's the same with a bike, but I also like biking to places when it's conveniant so bikeshare is perfect for me really. Bikeshare is good for ordinary people who are not bike lovers by nature who wants to move around more easily without trouble or complication. It's good for big bike lovers too, but the magic of it is that it attracks more people to this mode of transportation and it's what we need.

Madrid is also a good example of an electric bike share program to promote cycling. Modal share and the amount of cycling infrastructure are both very low in the city, but the bikes being electric widens the range of people willing to bike on narrow traffic calmed streets (especially when they were well-maintained pre-corona). Plus, being able to zip home on an ebike after a late night definitely beats paying for a taxi or waiting until 6AM for the metro to open back up!

I use my bike during the week for my shopping + work bag, on the weekend for a large bag and various objects and occasionally for moving my French horn. That's why I have a removable bicycle bag, and a different rack at the front and back. My mother has always had a bicycle with a detachable bicycle trailer, child seats and a rack. That bike was heavy and sturdy. She also had a light bicycle with little luggage space if she did not have to transport children and no weekly shopping for a family of seven. If you use your bicycle a lot, it is nice to buy your own bicycle with your own budget, adapt it to your own wishes and maintain it for your own use. For example: as a teenager I had a very good and sturdy bicycle that cost a few hundred, but never had to be repaired, despite my shameless use of it. Now I have a cheap bike, because I leave my bike at the train station of a big city every weekend, I don't use an extra lock and I don't want to spend a euro every week for secured and covered parking. Furthermore, bicycle maintenance is very cheap and simple (as long as you don't keep putting off purchasing a set of wrenches for the first time in your life). I would definitely be able to rent bikes. And I might find myself in a scenario some day when I rent an electric cargo bike (as I don't have a car) or a folding bike if I were visiting the countryside by transit, but I can't really imagine any other scenarios where I'd rent one.

I live in an area that has limited public transit in the late afternoon and early night, making it impractical to attend events late at night because the public transit home doesn't align too well with when those events end. I would love to have access to a better "last mile" option that takes me from the closest frequent public transit and home, but I don't know if my area is dense enough for proper bike share and it definitely won't warrant increased frequencies when the busses we already have are almost empty. More density would be the best solution and safer bicycle parking closer to the well-connected areas nearby would probably do it, but I don't know if it would make sense to build safe bicycle parking in an area it makes sense to e-bike to, with better transit options.

IMHO as a Canadian watching Dutch VIDS - my thought is that the usage would be VERY LOW compared to the LEVEL of build out the netwrk requires to function and with OV-fiet being part of the "public transit" network the shown model works "better" for commuters as there WILL BE a bike waiting for your homeward trip as it is "YOURS" VS a share bike that likely is NOT available when EVEYBODY is taking one at the SAME time and the AMOUNT of labour to MOVE that number of bikes to be ready for the RUSH home / to work OV-fiets only HAS to make sure all the bikes get returned to the CORRECT station which I assume is BILLED to the renter if NOT

OV-Fiets can be used by foreigners. I've just came from the Netherlands and used it. You do have to have an OV card that can be bought online but it can only be shipped to a Dutch address, though. It makes it almost inaccessible to foreigners, but they can use it. Let's hope that at some point OV cards can be bought at train stations. I do get the point on OV-Fiets. It's designed for when you travel to another city, as it's available nationwide. And it works really well. I guess they don't need it for last mile or commuting because they already invested heavily in safe bike parking in homes, train stations and office buildings so it's very convenient for people to use their own bikes. And there's also Swapfiets if you don't want to have your own bike or deal with maintenance or theft

You still need to pick up the bike from the rack(if it is not close) and bring it to another rack when finished. A lot of students have one bike for the ride to the train station and one for the ride to the end point (like college) even some commuters have that. Theft is not really an issue if your bike isn't new, so a lot of bikes look like crap but still work perfectly. Also most people can do the simple maintenance or know someone in the family who can. And used bikes are really cheap.... Cheaper than your 'cheap service ' for a year...

Honestly, I had mixed thoughts before clicking but after hearing your points I 100% agree. I would definitely use something like that if I had it in my city.

Although maybe less than you would expect in a country wich is generally as cycling friendly as the Netherlands, we are not a total void of bikesharing systems. For instance Donkey Republic operates in several cities. There are also several operators of shared mopeds. And my favorite is the existance of shared cargo-bikes, which makes car-free living even more comfortable and easy.

As an American who moved from SF to Utrecht, there are moments where it seemed like it would be nice to have, but I think the majority of use cases are met here one way or another. Utrecht and Amersterdam do have dockless bikeshare (Donkey Republic in Amsterdam, Tier in Utrecht and other cities) in addition to OVFiets (my partner has unlimited access through work), as well as cargo bike share (which will soon allow one way trips). There's plenty of bikes available to rent from shops as well as Swapfiets. Not to mention if you're visiting someone there's a decent chance they have an extra bike laying around. Bikeshare in SF was a nightmare - it was a monopoly, absurdly expensive, low availability, poorly maintained. Every place I tried to use it North America it was roughly got the job done, but a similar condition. I think the concept works in theory, but most places that recently picked up bikeshare got it from one the VC-backed firms, which just don't offer much on top of the various systems already here.

When I went to Copenhagen I was a big fan of the different bike share options they had. There was an orange bikeshare called Donkey something with a good variety of bikes with different accessories and features. I saw a ton of people using them

Curious your thoughts on docked vs dockless bikeshare. I could see ova fiets being nice because you know your bike will still be there after work. We have a semi-docked system where there are hubs, but you don’t have to return a bike to one at the end (it’s cheaper if you do return them though). In SF I had issues riding to work because I would get there and the rack would be full. I would end up riding halfway back to the train to find a dock. On the other hand, knowing there’s a dock nearby is nice because there will most likely be a bike to pick up.

I've used the bikeshare systems in Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver, and Québec and loved them - really wish we could get a system here in Ottawa one day

I'm in Boston,MA, USA and I own my own bike. I use BlueBikes nearly every day anyway. One big reason is that storage is a big issue in Boston--any bike storage will take space away from other road users. In the Netherlands, a lot of that public bike storage already exists, while here, it doesn't exist. If I'm commuting to work or getting errands done, its easier to use the bike share. It also means I pay less every year on my own bike's maintenance, even if I ride it for more miles every week.

Great video!

I have 3 different standard type bikes to get me around Denver. Even with them, I’d still be willing to pay up to $20/mo for reliable bicycles I can do a one-way trip on, such as when I fly, shortening my initial trip by 30 minutes in the morning, bicycling to get groceries & then using transit to get home with full bags (I have panniers & use them too), or getting to a location too far to walk from transit where I don’t need my bike otherwise. We had a municipal bike share in Denver until the pandemic but deferred maintenance accumulated & costs were unattractive. We now have bike & scooter share companies but they charge an activation fee & per minute fee for use so a 2-mile journey can be $5-9 easily!

I don't use bikeshare personally (I don't like the bike models available in my local system), but I'm glad the system exists, and I hope it expands along with cycling culture in my area!

I love using the DC CitiBike system - I've been able to do multi-day business trips without ever setting foot in a car!

Bikesharing was invented in the Netherlands in the 1960's (Wittefietsenplan). And there are still bikeshare options in the Netherlands, but they are not used as often as in other countries. Bikeshare is expensive compared to your own cheap citybike. In a city like Rotterdam you can chose between Baqme (Cargobike), Cargoroo (Cargobike) and Donkey Republic or go by scooter (way more used) with Felyx, Gosharing, Lime or Check. There have been more options but they didn't survive. All these options are a little expensive and only usefull if you have no alternatives. The OV fiets is often cheaper. By the way, a company like Donkey Republic is available in around 100 cities worldwide (4 in the Netherlands, compared to 16 in Denmark and way more in Belgium), but they have about the same number of bikes in total as there are OV fietsen in the Netherlands. The options for cargobikes are also used for carrying around kids and dogs. And finally you can take your own bike in the metro in Rotterdam outside of rush hours.

In my city (actually the whole county) of Stavanger in Norway we have a bikeshare program integrated in the transit ticket so you get 15 mins for free if you have a transit ticket, it is very popular and I use it quite often.

I live 50 miles outside of Boston. I bought a bike share annual plan and used it enough to offset the cost over single rides in about six months despite not living or working in the city. I now have the option of driving to satellite parking and biking the last five miles or taking a bus or a train and biking from the train station.

The thing is, in many Dutch cities bike share programs were started and most were changed over to electric scooter share programs because the bike share didn’t really get in its feet. Because everything is so close (as in every neighborhood has shops etc) it was thought most convenient for people coming from public transport. But the people who would find it useful, already had bikes stashed at their transit end station. Also, the bike share programs didn’t use stations. You could leave the bike anywhere in the city. And the app showed you the closest bike to your location. And still it didn’t catch on. The potential simply isn’t there. The people who would benefit, are the people who wouldn’t benefit 😉 the people who already have multiple bikes in multiple location (I have two at home, one at the station in the city I work in and one at the station near a friend). Add to that the fact that, specially in cities, public transport goes everywhere you don’t just have the choice between walking the last mile from the nearest metro or taking a bike. You can simply hop on a bus/tram and get off at a two/there minute walk from your destination. One of your arguments was )and I paraphrase here) “a few companies tries in a couple of cities is the same argument as we made a few bike lanes but no one used them.” I have to wholeheartedly disagree. It wasn’t tried “in a few cities,” it was tried, at the same time, in every large city in the country and many smaller ones. They were more of a nuisance and a massive irritation to the public than anything else. They took away from available bike parking for people who took their own bike, they were left literally everywhere, sometimes in the middle of the pedestrian paths. A better analogy would have been “we have developed a well integrated and nation wide bike network but no one used it.” And that is a good indication that there simply isn’t a need, want or even prospective want for it. The electric scooter share service I mentioned earlier is getting good use. Because you can use them for longer distances. And still, they aren’t used enough.

Management is for sure one of the most important parts of bike share. My college campus had a bike share system, but it was not well managed. There were only a half dozen or so stations around the relatively small campus, and yet there were constantly stations with no bikes or completely full so that you couldn't park there. Even when there were bikes at a station, the stations themselves often just didn't work; it either wouldn't read your ID card or if it did, it just wouldn't release the bikes after it gave you a code. They simply could not be relied on for anything important, like getting to class on time. People almost exclusively used them to get to dining halls, the library, and friends' dorms. I just kept my own bike and it was infinitely more convenient, although I did often try to use the bike share when I was out somewhere without my bike, often unsuccessfully for any of the reasons I mentioned. It was always especially awkward when you were with a group of friends and planned to use the bike share but there was 1 too few bikes at the station or the station just wouldn't read one of your ID cards or anything like that and suddenly everyone has to put their bikes back to not leave anyone behind; several minutes wasted successfuly taking out bikes just to not be able to use them anyways. Had the bike share system actually been reliable, and preferably if there were even more stations too, I probably would've used them a lot more. But as it was, they were treated as an afterthought. A minor convenience that looked good to incoming students on a tour but that few people actually relied on in any meaningful way.

My most frequent trip for using bike share is to coast half a dozen blocks downhill to get a takeout burrito, then walk uphill back home. It's also been handy for going out. I might take a car share to get to my destination a little quicker (and less sweaty) - or an ebike from the bike share - then bike home when I'm a little tipsy. I won't have to worry about the safety or location of my own bike between places on a pub crawl (a friend once put the call out for people to help find their "stolen" bike, only for someone to find it the next day - still safely locked up a block over from where they thought they left it). Even just finding a good place to lock up my bike isn't always guaranteed to be available despite the decent cycling infrastructure and culture of Vancouver - but isn't a worry if I'm traveling within the availabilty area of the bike share. I also used the bike share services while visiting Toronto and Seattle, and they were great to get around the city when I was there for work for a few days and only needed a bike occasionally.

-I just want to be able to park my bike basically on the destination where Im going instead of having to look for one of those spots. -Also I dont want to think about how long my trip is going to be and having to pay extra. -And also 120 euros/dollars per year is more than what I spend on maintainance. -Also I dont want to have to adjust the seat every time I get on my bike and check if the tires are full etc. -Also I dont want to have to worry about breaking the bike and dealing with insurance. I own a bike that rides like a dream but looks like crap and isnt worth much. So I'm not worried about it being stolen. Basically having my own bike is cheaper, more luxorious, less time intensive, and more care-free than using a bike swapping service. Have a nice day! 😊

3:27 Insurance. Really, it's been a game changer for me. Get decent insurance and stop worrying. (ofc it's shitty that it's "necessary", but for the current situation it's the best solution at least for me)

I personally don't want these companies over here because many of these companies are the same companies that invaded cities with their scooters and the disrespectful way that they introduced their dockless vehicles into cities and didn't seem to care about what impact their vehicles and the way that their users treated and left their vehicles has soured me on them. Instead I think that the OV fiets system could be expanded, instead of having OV fiets only available at train stations they could expand the system to have ov fiets stations at every major bus stop (Bus stops where say more than 4 lines converge, at each neighborhood's shopping "square" (pretty much every neighborhood in NL has this spot where a bunch of shops are grouped together.), in front of schools, parks and any major location like these. Open the system up for tourist to use, since I honestly don't know why they don't allow tourists to use the system, except maybe they are worried for their safety. And then finally have the option to pay for shorter trips and a subscription system. Many people that need to use a bike to get to work after they take a train to another city will simply buy another another bike and keep it parked at the station of that other city, but it would be nice to not have to do that and avoid the possibility of arriving at the station and finding out you had a flat or that some punk kids let out the air out of your tires, but for that to be a option it needs to be well priced because as you mentioned we can buy a second hand bike here for under 100 Euros.

I also haven't released all the benefits of using a public bike share before I tried it. It's super convenient here in NYC. Citi bike in NYC covers all my needs in the city and I don't use subway as often as before I signed up for Citi bike. I use my own foldable bike that I keep at home for longer trips outside of the city only and never worry about bike theft anymore (victim in the past)

My city just got bike-share and the biggest thing I learnt here was just how cheep everywhere else is. £1 to unlock each time, then £0.16 per minute. A day pass is £9 with no unlock fee but your talking about £10 a month. I think a month is just under £40 with limits on your use. When you put it in context our prices are crazy high. Our bike lane network also is missing a few keep connections, the uni to town being the biggest missing link but also an alternative route to get through the pedestrianised area. Your minutes mount up trying to just cross town if you don't want to play chicken with double decker buses. Dock location is also less than stella but it has just launched so that's to be expects hopefully an expansion will go out along the newest bike lanes with work to improve connections, that unlikely cause we barely got the money for this project.

Netherlands has the best bike sharing system - Donkey republic. Those are free standing bikes all around the city which you can take and drop very easily (not in all cities yet though, in Rotterdam for example). Another one popular is Swapfiets, but there they give you personal bike for monthly subscription and provide free and superfast maintanance/repairs for it or even swap it for new one if needed. On the train stations across the country you also can rent a bike (OV-fiets) but that one you have to return to the same place

I live in Lisbon, thankfully in a mostly flat neighborhood, and although I do own a (crappy) folding bike, I have to lug it up and down a flight of stairs, which I obviously hate, plus my bike is not an e-bike. Although my area is flat, bike lanes here are still not very good, there are some gentle slopes which can be terrible on very hot days, I have to ride on an overpass to get to the gym and it's simply not feasible with a conventional bike, so I end up using bikeshare three times a week, on my way to the gym. There are three docks nearby, so I rarely have issues getting a bike. Also, if the trips are short, I don't pay anything at all - even the annual subscription to the service is free if you have a transit pass, which I do. So I use the service free of charge :) I used to take the bus for these trips, but the line I use is pretty crowded and it's been kinda erratic lately, schedule-wise, so riding a bike is actually more reliable. And much more enjoyable - every time I ride one I keep telling myself how awesome it is. The only drawback is that the app is bad: it's slow, it's constantly logging me out for no reason, and, to be honest, I don't like the fact that I need to use an app to get a bike. We depend too much on our phones and on the internet as it is. I'd much rather using the red dangle thingie, which works when you've lost your phone or had it stolen or let it run out of battery, when you have no internet credit, when your internet is crappy, when your fingers don't work well because it's too cold, when it's so sunny and bright you can't see anything on your screen. Love your videos, keep 'em coming! Cheers from Lisbon and Brazil :)

My son is a grad student in the Netherlands and rents a bike with a monthly charge. If the bike needs repair or is stolen it will be replaced.

Simple reason: we Dutch are used to have our bike with us everywhere. Like bringing a bag. When you use a bus or car to go into the center, you also never need a bike, because the centers are small and walkable. I hated the use rental bikes in London: empty racks at the start, full racks on return; took so much time. Theft is strongly reduced with many (new) free indoor parkings in most city centers and all railway stations.

If your vehicle can only transport one person at a time, it should only have one owner. Bikeshare just adds complication for everday use. It should only be used when visiting a city that isn't your home.

I live in the Netherlands and I do see some use cases for bike share :) Especially now we have a newborn who I can't yet safely transport on my city bike, after dropping her off at daycare it would be useful to grab a bike there. And sometimes taking a bike to a store and then public transit back with the unwieldy things I bought would also be nice. However, I do also have some issues with bike share from my experience with it in North America and London. I'm not so worried about not finding a bike, but we had a few situations where the destination parking was full. Especially if you have to pay once your time frame is up it made it sort of stressful to find another dock, not to mention you had to move away from where you wanted to go to do so. They are less comfortable than my own bikes and sometimes the docking stations would error. Of course all of these problems are relatively minor. But I actually think one of the bigger issues with implementation of these in the Netherlands is that the potential scale of users is so big that it might become unmanageable. Imagine a few thousand cyclists arriving at a train station and all wanting to use the bike share from there to the office buildings. For this reason, you're also not allowed to take your bike on buses in the Netherlands. It would be helpful, yes, but it would disrupt the service too much with how many cyclists there are. You could of course invest enormously in bike share to make it work on a huge scale, but this type of investment would do a lot more good in public transport, IMO. I totally agree on the OV-fiets for foreigners, by the way! It's wrong to exclude people based on their address and it would be very useful for quite a lot of visitors. But of course, foreign visitors don't typically have representation in government...

Around here the “shares” are electric scooters and mostly dockless. You can store a scooter in a smaller space and for many they are easier to ride (plenty of adults do not know how to ride a bike). Don’t have to worry about how you are dressed and can fit two. The older kids and teens often double up. Despite the rules. It’s general practice people ride them on our sidewalks and that takes up less space. They also go pretty slow. Like 12-15 mph tops. I’ve had one encounter where one teenager ran into me while on a bike. Minor injury on both accounts. Beats being hit by a teenager in a car.

renting a cargo bike makes sense because they're huge things and you don't exactly need something like that every day leasing out/test driving a hi-end bike makes sense, because you wanna test out the new tech and get a feel for what you're paying extra for renting a city bike makes no sense because you can probably get one for yourself for not much more and it's going to have more features than the rental

When I worked in Seattle there was a bike share system there, but I rarely used it because I wasn't in the habit of carrying my helmet around.

What were you having to pay there (in Holland) for daily bike rentals from your hotels? Well, on average then?

Wittefietsenplan (White bicycle plan) was a bike sharing plan from the 60’s. The concept is not uncommon to the Dutch, but like a lot of weesfietsen, they end up being stolen or abandoned, usually dumped in the canals. So it's easier to own a bike and with the infrastructure we have, public transit is only a luxury for those who don't have the time to cycle 50 miles.