Dublinbikes.ie - anyone signed up?

JayeL

It's just been one day and there's plenty scope for junkies to offer to leave a bike back for an unwitting tourist and then go and wreck it.

I took out a bike 3 times today. I have a Long Term Hire card, so it was easy enough. Unfortunately, because I seemed to know what I was doing, random folk were asking me twenty questions each. I took one from Chatham St to Custom House Quay and lived to tell the tale. The bikes are geared in such a way as to prevent you building up a decent bit of momentum, which is a bit of a drawback. But in fairness, they're well-built, very easy to adjust and fine for A to B.

Took another one from Custom House Quay back to Chatham St, turns out you have to wait 5 mins to rent again. Then my wife had a go of one beside Stephen's Green.
The bikes have always-on dynamo-driven lights, which is a good idea. Not sure if the lock is - I don't think they should be encouraging users to leave them anywhere other than a bike station.

Gonna try them again for my commute to work tomorrow.

Metrobest

I love this report which seems to end with the cyclist accelerating through a red light. Thanks RTE!

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0913/bicycles.html

MadsL

Metrobest wrote: »

See, I was right all along! This scheme is a brilliant idea. Funny how all the negative individuals criticizing the scheme have now gone into hiding as they realize that, actually, it WAS a good deal for Dublin!

The bikes, in my opinion, are even nicer than the ones in Paris. Well done to all involved in the scheme for not giving in to the nay sayers!

Metrobest, the so-called 'nay sayers' never said that a city bike scheme was not a good idea, just how poor a deal Dublin got in relation to other cities. Plus the fact that the adverts used to finance the scheme are ugly and dangerous. By the way there STILL hasn't been a Safety review 18 months later, despite 2 motions from council and the planning condition stipulating a stage 3 safety review. Shameful.

dereko1969

solice wrote: »

But, they told me ill get my card in 14 days....but I want to use it now!!!!

Is there anyway of getting a bike without signing up for the 3 day ticket?

mine arrived in 2 days, super efficient

daveyboy_1ie

Mine arrived in a couple of days too, very impressed.

They could not have picked a better weekend weather wise to start the sccheme, hopefully people stick with it as I hear they want to expand the stations and number of bikes.

dearg lady

MadsL wrote: »

By the way there STILL hasn't been a Safety review 18 months later, despite 2 motions from council and the planning condition stipulating a stage 3 safety review. Shameful.

Just wondering what you mean by a safety review? I know you probably mentioned in earlier topics but I ddin't see em.

yeah, will be interesting to see how things pan out over the next few weeks, tho seems like a pretty positive start!

mmat

I used it today and thought it was great, there's also a iPhone App now for showing you the status of the stations, it uses the GPS to find the closest one.

http://itunes.com/app/dublinbikes

Mat

paulm17781

It seems to be relatively successful but could do better. The dock at Capel st bridge was practically full this morning. I've been cycling down Dame st. in the mornings and it's so nice and quiet now, I'm hoping in a couple of weeks there'll be a lot more people on these new bikes.

BrianD

Metrobest wrote: »

See, I was right all along! This scheme is a brilliant idea. Funny how all the negative individuals criticizing the scheme have now gone into hiding as they realize that, actually, it WAS a good deal for Dublin!

The bikes, in my opinion, are even nicer than the ones in Paris. Well done to all involved in the scheme for not giving in to the nay sayers!

I haven't gone into hiding. There's still a lot of questions about the deal that was done. It would be better to see the bike stations as prolific as the advertising signs.

Anyway I went to work on one this morning. Only problem is remembering that cycling to work means cycling home again! Got to my nearest bike station and it was full. I wonder is there any way that they can remove a few bikes from certain stations in the evening to facilitate people coming out from the city?

MadsL

Just wondering what you mean by a safety review?

Dearg lady, a stage 3 road safety audit was supposed to be done on the scrolling signs that were granted planning permission and any that failed a safety audit were to be removed. 2 motions from councillors have so far failed to get the City Manager to act. Some of the signs are in ridiculously dangerous positions.

BrianD

Metrobest wrote: »

I love this report which seems to end with the cyclist accelerating through a red light. Thanks RTE!

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0913/bicycles.html

You can't blame RTE for that!

On the subject of locks... I wouldn't rely on them. They are only a light deterrent and seem to be attached to the weakest part of the bike...the basket.

mmat

qbasic wrote: »

The iphone app (when released) will come in handy, should save you cycling to a drop off only to find its full.

http://fusio.net/dublinbikesapp/

That's out now, - http://itunes.com/app/dublinbikes

Mat

BrianD

mmat wrote: »

That's out now, - http://itunes.com/app/dublinbikes

Mat

Could they not make one for the phoes that everyone uses?

Actually, I can't recall if you can check parking availability at a station before you depart one. Is this possible?

Ste.phen

Had a look at the machine this morning and it showed me the status of the 4 next-closest stations, but not the others. Worst case is you get there, it's full, and the machine tells you teh location of the closest one which isn't full, there's not many that are so far apart from the others that this would be more than 5 mins walk away

MyDublin

MadsL wrote: »

Metrobest, the so-called 'nay sayers' never said that a city bike scheme was not a good idea, just how poor a deal Dublin got in relation to other cities. Plus the fact that the adverts used to finance the scheme are ugly and dangerous. By the way there STILL hasn't been a Safety review 18 months later, despite 2 motions from council and the planning condition stipulating a stage 3 safety review. Shameful.

Can't you let it go at any stage .... Why do you constantly seem to try to stir it up for the council - what motivation have you got for repeatedly trying to make this contract look bad? Thousands of people have voted with their credit cards and their bums on seats! Democracy rules - well done Dublin City Council and citizens alike for hanging in there and doing a fabulous job - it was well worth the wait.

Stark

MyDublin wrote:

Democracy rules

Does Democracy include telling constituents to STFU when they have concerns? No wonder the country is in the state it's in.

AlekSmart

Can't you let it go at any stage .... Why do you constantly seem to try to stir it up for the council - what motivation have you got for repeatedly trying to make this contract look bad?

Hmmmmm...I`m not sure MadsL has to try too hard to "stir it up for the Council" as they appear quite capable of doing their own thank you very much.

My Dublin may be confusing an antipathy for DCC`s less than public spirited methodloogy with some form of imagined Anti-Cycling bias in any post questioning the DublinBikes/JC Decaux contract.

With less than a week gone since Bikey Day it`s really far too early to deliver a nay or yea on the ability of the DublinBikes scheme to survive.

Call again in 2010 I`d say...then we can do an audit of what we find....

I`d also be somewhat reluctant to drape garlands around the Councillors necks just yet (Well....Floral one`s anyway....)

well done Dublin City Council and citizens alike for hanging in there and doing a fabulous job - it was well worth the wait.

It may be that DCC`s

fabulous job

amounted to little more than handing over a few On-Street Car Parking spaces (Always painful for DCC and impossible to secure for Public Transport)

Again...I think my wait will be until Springtime 2010 :P

BrianD

Ste.phen wrote: »

Had a look at the machine this morning and it showed me the status of the 4 next-closest stations, but not the others. Worst case is you get there, it's full, and the machine tells you teh location of the closest one which isn't full, there's not many that are so far apart from the others that this would be more than 5 mins walk away

When I arrived in Charlemont last night it was full so I tagged on and it gave me the list of the closest with spaces. I wonder what happens if the nearest one is quite a journey away. I'll be winging them and asking them to collect it! I believe in Berlin the bikes have GPS so you can abandon them anywhere.

Maldini2706

The sites are all 300-400m apart aren't they?

Ste.phen

I've noticed a few handy tools for checking the status of the stations,a good example being dublinbikes.mobi
is anyone collecting stats for all the stations to build up usage patterns, etc?
I presume the guys running the scheme are, but would they release the data?

(As an example, i noticed just before 5.30 yesterday that most of the stations on the extreme north side (harwicke st, eccles st, blessington st) were empty, and the city centre stations were mostly full, but just after 6 it was the ones in the south-east of the network were almost empty (james st east, wilton terrace, etc)

I'm guessing that was people walking to phibsboro and cyling the rest of the way in, and then (as i did myself) cycling from work into the city centre once they got out of work... Just wondering about what other patterns there are

paddy2k

has anyone else made a mobile app or mobile app for the bikes. I created http://dublinbikes2go.com it'd be great to get some feedback if anyone finds it useful.

Stark

Pity you forgot to create a DNS wildcard entry

(Edit: was referring to old http://dublinbikes.ie link)

gar32

I had great use of them today and I would normaly use my car for this once a week trip. Saved on fuel parking and could take my time. Thanks to who ever is keep these bikes going


Date Journey Time Service charge
16/09/2009 JERVIS STREET -> SMITHFIELD 0h 7min 0,00 €
16/09/2009 PEARSE STREET -> JERVIS STREET 0h 8min 0,00 €
16/09/2009 GEORGES QUAY -> CHATHAM STREET 0h 12min 0,00 €
16/09/2009 PRINCES STREET / O'CONNELL STREET -> GEORGES QUAY 0h 4min 0,00 €
16/09/2009 GREEK STREET -> PRINCES STREET / O'CONNELL STREET 0h 6min 0,00 €

Metrobest

gar32 wrote: »

I had great use of them today and I would normaly use my car for this once a week trip. Saved on fuel parking and could take my time. Thanks to who ever is keep these bikes going


Date Journey Time Service charge
16/09/2009 JERVIS STREET -> SMITHFIELD 0h 7min 0,00 €
16/09/2009 PEARSE STREET -> JERVIS STREET 0h 8min 0,00 €
16/09/2009 GEORGES QUAY -> CHATHAM STREET 0h 12min 0,00 €
16/09/2009 PRINCES STREET / O'CONNELL STREET -> GEORGES QUAY 0h 4min 0,00 €
16/09/2009 GREEK STREET -> PRINCES STREET / O'CONNELL STREET 0h 6min 0,00 €

Excellent stuff, really shows the potential of DublinBikes. Dublin is one of Europe's most suitable cities for cycling all year round with its narrow streets and relatively benign climate. What's now urgently needed is for this scheme to be extended deeper into the city and to the inner suburbs.

Metrobest

MadsL wrote: »

Metrobest, the so-called 'nay sayers' never said that a city bike scheme was not a good idea, just how poor a deal Dublin got in relation to other cities. Plus the fact that the adverts used to finance the scheme are ugly and dangerous. By the way there STILL hasn't been a Safety review 18 months later, despite 2 motions from council and the planning condition stipulating a stage 3 safety review. Shameful.

Build a (cycle-friendly) bridge and get over it. ::cool:

JayeL

paddy2k wrote: »

has anyone else made a mobile app or mobile app for the bikes. I created http://dublinbikes2go.com it'd be great to get some feedback if anyone finds it useful.

Hi Paddy, app is good and looks official, proper colours and everything. However I put in 3 locations in the Bike Me field and it suggested Leinster St South for all, including Clarendon St, where there's a station at its junction with Chatham St. That said, the data is perfect but it might be an idea to show at a glance the status of both bikes and spaces at each station i.e. "Hardwicke St: 8 bikes, 12 spaces" rather than having to click into each station.

Great site, I have it bookmarked!

Stark

Had a bash off them yesterday evening. Couldn't go 10 metres without people stopping to question me about the bikes. Bikes themselves are quite decent and certainly fit for purpose. Easily able to keep up with most of the city centre traffic while in 3rd gear anyway.

zagmund

I was just looking at their sign-up website and they have one of those fields that really annoys me . . .

This site is for Irish people, primarily . . . and they ask for a postcode with no spaces. How many Irish postcodes (if they are even officially postcodes) have no spaces ? Let me see . . . "Co. Leitrim" ? Nope. "Co. Kerry" ? Nope. "Dublin 8" ? Nope.

So, what's with the no spaces rule ? It's not that they can't take spaces, because they can accept "1 O'Connell Street" as an address. This kind of detail bugs me. Maybe if An Post got around to assigning 4/6/10 digit codes that would be something, but we don't have them so on a form aimed at people living in Ireland asking them to put in a code with no spaces is just silly.

Before anyone asks, no I haven't used the bikes yet, but yes I will.

z

markpb

zagmund wrote: »

This site is for Irish people, primarily . . . and they ask for a postcode with no spaces. How many Irish postcodes (if they are even officially postcodes) have no spaces ? Let me see . . . "Co. Leitrim" ? Nope. "Co. Kerry" ? Nope. "Dublin 8" ? Nope.

The postcode in Dublin is usually written D8, not Dublin 8 so the site can accept that. In fairness though, it was very lazy not removing the postcode field from the Irish site when they were localising it.

bg07

paddy2k wrote: »

has anyone else made a mobile app or mobile app for the bikes. I created http://dublinbikes2go.com it'd be great to get some feedback if anyone finds it useful.

On the northside/south side page would it be possible to put the number of free bikes spaces as well as the number of bikes? I know that its on the map page but it would just make it that little bit quicker to use.

Good site though, I will be using it