Category: Active Transportation

JUMP hub count

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

JUMP is gradually adding hubs to the system. As of today, the counts I see are:

  • Davis: 3
  • West Sacramento: 7
  • Sacramento: 60

In Sacramento, the number of hubs exceeds the number of bikes available. at least at certain times of day. The city requirement was two rack spaces, not the JUMP ‘wave’ racks only, but also regular racks, per bike. The hubs have between four and twelve bike spaces, at least the ones I’ve visited. The number of available bikes as of this moment (8:30PM, 2018-07-02) is 51, but I’m sure there are bikes in motion. I saw five bikes being ridden while out on my evening walk.

People have been asking me questions about the bike share system, and pointing out that I have mixed feelings. Yes, that is true. I think it has the power to transform transportation in Sacramento, but is falling short at the moment. I am traveling and backpacking this summer, only occasionally in town, so it probably will not be until mid-August that I’ll have much to say about the system.

Remember, you can always comment on my posts (if you have commented before and been accepted, you comment will automatically get added, if not, I approve, or very rarely disapprove, as soon as I can). If you have written something, you can submit a link to that. Of, if you have more ambition, you can write your own posts for consideration for Getting Around Sacramento. I don’t want my voice to the the only voice.

 

when the battery runs out

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Several people have asked me what happens with a JUMP bike if the battery runs out before you get to your destination. Now I know. It isn’t too bad. I have been picking up low battery bikes and returning them to hubs where they are more easily picked up by the field crew for charging, and if the battery goes completely dead and they disappear from the system, they are in a known spot where they can be found. Last night I picked up a bike that showed in the app as having a low battery (one red bar on the battery indicator, see the screen capture at right for an example), and it was so low that it did not provide any detectable pedal assist. It did have enough battery to power the headlights and taillights, but the pedaling was all mine.

The bikes are heavy, and so getting started from a stop requires some muscle. But once moving, the bikes are not hard to pedal, and the electric motor does not cause any significant drag. I would not want to go up a hill, but there aren’t any real hills in the current service area, and pedaling into a strong headwind would probably not be pleasant. People with handicaps or less strong muscles should probably avoid low battery bikes, just to make sure.

The bikes that show up in the app with a $ bike icon (not fixed yet), I call ‘low battery’, These still have considerably life in them, as long as you aren’t doing a long ride. The ones that show with a single red bar, I call ‘low-low battery’. These may get you to a nearly location, but you wouldn’t pick one for a longer trip.

Most of the time when I take a low-low battery bike to a hub, it puts itself into ‘repair’ mode a minute or so after I lock it up, which is what it should do.

Bike share is booming

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

I had a mindset for the last three weeks that the problem with the JUMP system was that bikes were not being used because they were not being charged and re-balanced. But my observations this weekend show that I had things flipped. The system is getting used so much that the bikes are running out of battery. Everywhere I went in the central city, I saw people riding them. I’d see a bike parked, and ten minutes later it was gone, in use by someone else. I don’t know when JUMP will provide rides-per-bike data to the partners, but I think it will indicate that, at least on weekends, each bike is getting many trips per day.

The app map this morning showed almost no bikes in the central city, and what there were were in low-battery status. On my walk, I saw five bikes in very low battery ‘in repair’ status, all within a few blocks of my home. Another had a dead GPS battery, which I think happens when they stay in ‘in repair’ mode for a long time. The bikes are still in the central city, but they are out of juice because they have been used so many times.

Two things users could do to help:

  • If you find a dead GPS battery bike, with the display blank and the keypad unresponsive, email JUMP at support@jumpbikes.com to let them know the location, street and cross-street. Include that it is in Sacramento, or West Sacramento, or Davis, as the bike numbers alone don’t pin down which city the bike is in.
  • If your destination is within a block, or perhaps two, of a hub, park at the hub. That not only makes it easier for the next person to find it, but makes it easier for the JUMP field crew to find it, particularly if it eventually goes to dead battery and drops off the system.

No hub or rack near your destination? You can submit location requests to JUMP at the same support@jumpbikes.com email address. There are a number of locations which have been identified for hubs but not yet installed. Some of them in repurposed parking spaces, marked with thick white lines and two delineators. But it doesn’t hurt to submit an already planned location, so go ahead. SACOG has promised a map of future hub locations, but I’ve not seen it. Presumably it will show up on the SACOG Bike Share page: https://www.sacog.org/bike-share.

a day in the life… of bike share

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

I saw a cool graphic of the flow of JUMP bike share bikes in San Francisco, and thought is would be interesting to do the same for Sacramento. The effect is not so dramatic, but it is interesting. I have zeroed in on the central city, which of course only tells part of the story, but this is the level at which bike and hub icons show, whereas the next zoom out only shows them as dots. I’d like to do this for a weekday as well, but probably won’t have the chance for several weeks, as I’m out of town.

The first one is Saturday, at a few points in time, the second one is Sunday, at three hour intervals. Maybe like watching paint dry, maybe better.

JUMP_Sac-map_2018-06-09

JUMP SF and Sac bikes

Dan Allison1 Comment

There are at least two San Francisco bikes in Sacramento, and I’ve come across them and ridden them. The most obvious, though subtle, difference is that the SF bikes have eight gears and the Sacramento bikes three, as befits the terrain. The shifting direction is reversed.

Since I rode these bikes on the same day that I rode Sacramento bikes, I could compare them directly, and the feeling I’d had when I’d ridden them several days apart turned out to be accurate. The bikes accelerate the same, but once reaching top speed of 15 mph for Sacramento bikes and 20 mph for San Francisco, the Sacramento bikes drop out of assist roughly, and continue to go in and out of it, surging and bogging down. The San Francisco bikes have a smooth transition, noticeable, but much smoother, going from assist to not in a comfortable manner.

The Sacramento bikes make a lot more noise than the San Francisco bikes. Sometimes people turn their head to look. Though I don’t know for sure, I suspect this is the result of whatever was implemented to limit the Sacramento bikes to 15 mph, which is not their design speed but a limitation imposed by the City of Sacramento. I’m concerned that the bikes may actually be damaged by this. I do know that when mechanical devices make a lot of noise, it is not a good sign.

I continue to believe that the 15 mph limitation was unnecessary and inappropriate.

bike share parking requirements

Dan Allison1 Comment

Not by the rules, but not causing any problems.

I had lost track of the bike share parking requirements, but found the City of Sacramento has a good bike share page now that answers most questions you might have, at http://www.cityofsacramento.org/Public-Works/Transportation/Programs-and-Services/Bicycling-Program/Bike-Share.

People have asked whether you have to lock the bike to a bike rack, and the answer from the page is yes, you do.

They have also asked what to do about improperly parked bikes. The page says to call 311, and they must be removed within two hours of notice to the vendor, JUMP in this case. I’m still going to recommend that you first report to JUMP by emailing support@jumpbikes.com, and report to the city if the issue is not solved in a timely manner. Some people have reported that 311 operators said it was not an issue to report to them, so there is some education yet to happen, but with the system only three weeks old, not all the bugs have been worked out yet.

5.18.220 Retrieval of bicycle-share bicycles.

A bicycle-share business shall, within two hours of notice, retrieve their bicycle-share bicycles that are in any of the following conditions:

  1.                Bicycle-share bicycles that are inoperable or not safe to operate, and parked in the public right-of-way;
  2.                Bicycle-share bicycles that are not parked at a bicycle rack in an upright position;
  3.                Bicycle-share bicycles with a battery or motor determined by the city to be unsafe for public use.
  4.                Bicycle-share bicycles parked in violation of section 10.76.050. (Ord. 2018-0006 § 1)

JUMP app and web view

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

The JUMP website has a map view (https://jumpbikes.com/cities/sacramento/, scroll down) that aggregates bikes out-of-hub into a numbered icon, as below at left. The app (at least the iOS app) does not aggregate bikes, as below at right. That makes it harder to tell how many bikes are nearby to a location. These are the same three bikes, very zoomed in.

If bikes are parked right next to each other, and the GPS units have the same location, the additional bikes may not show up at all. I think that if the app opened to an initial view that aggregates the bikes, then you could zoom in to see individual bikes, it would be more useful. The bikes are not always right next to each other, sometimes they are spread out over a block, and you want that information, but I think the first piece of information you want is how many bikes at that location. Of course, what ‘right next to each other’ means depends on the zoom level.

The hubs apparently show in identical ways between the app and the web.

  

JUMP Sac bike count, and locking

Dan Allison2 Comments

Counts

The count of JUMP bikes showing on the app on the morning of June 9, 6:00AM, is 55 in Sacramento, 8 in West Sacramento, and 20 in Davis, for a total of 93.

On the evening of Monday, June 4, the counts were: Sacramento 69, West Sacramento 21, and Davis 16, for a total of 106.

On the early morning of Saturday, June 2, the counts were: Sacramento 54, West Sacramento 11, Davis 32, for a total of 97.

Though I’m not counting low-battery, in repair bikes, which is much harder to do since they don’t show up on the app map, my impression is that there are many fewer of these out.

Someone from San Francisco created a cool animation that showed the flow of bikes between the financial district and Market Street, during the day, and the outer margins of the service area in the evening. I want to do this for Sacramento, but haven’t had the time yet.

Locking

I have found a few bikes improperly locked, but not many. Other people have commented on this, but it doesn’t seem to be a common problem. In the app, under the left menu, Support > How It Works > Locking a Bike, it says that the bike must be locked to a rack (see the full text below). I’ve seen other detail on locking, but can’t track it down at the moment. Bikes do get locked to sign posts and parking meters. Though this is not technically OK, it seems to be accepted so long as the bike is not blocking sidewalk access or ADA access.

My advice is: try to find a rack, or even better, a hub. If you can’t, find something else secure, but think about how other people might need to move around it. Can a person access their car or parking meter? Does it intrude into the sidewalk? Does it keep people from getting to newspaper racks?

Over time, there will be more hubs, installed by JUMP, and more bike racks in general, most installed by the cities, but for now there are many areas of town where there simply aren’t any bike racks, and sign posts and parking meters are the only option.

In case you are wondering, the JUMP-designed racks, which they call wave racks, and had a base and cutout circle for the lock, are required by the City of Sacramento in any location where a bike might intrude into the roadway, as they enforce locking in such as way as it won’t. In other locations where this is not an issue, or where the rack has not yet been replaced, regular bike racks of various sorts are used.

At the station

You can lock a JUMP bike at any hub location free of charge. Simply secure the U-bar around the rack and insert into the designated holes at the rear of the bike. Give it a gentle tug to confirm it’s secure. The keypad LCD interface will confirm that the reservation is complete.

Outside of a station

You can lock a JUMP bike out-fo-hub at a regular bike rack as long as it’s still inside the system area. Simply secure the U-bar around the rack and insert into the designated holes at the rear of the bike. Give it a gentle tug to confirm it’s secure. The keypad LCD interface will confirm that the reservation is complete.

Using the hold feature

Need to grab a coffee on your ride? Not near a hub location? Need to hang onto the bike? You can use the ‘hold’ button on the keypad to keep your reservation running, and lock the bike out-of-hub. You will not be charged the out-of-hub fee. Lock the U-bar around a secure bike rack, and check the keypad to make sure the screen indicates the bike is on hold. Note that your rental is still running during this period.

Using the repair feature

Got a flat tire during your ride? Press the ‘repair’ button on the keypad and secure the U-bar around a rack and lock it into the rear of the bike. Give it a gentle tug to confirm it’s secure. Details about the issue will be send to the operator letting them know your had a problem. The bike will be unavailable until the issue is resolved.

JUMP tidbits

Dan Allison1 Comment

I ran into a JUMP rebalancer at 16th & Q today. Neither of us had much time to talk, but I did gather some tidbits.

  • The warehouse is in West Sacramento.
  • The Tower Bridge Preview (white SoBi) bikes are going into storage, for now. Didn’t ask about the ultimate disposition. He was picking up the SoBi bikes, dead and live ones, so they should all be gone from the hubs soon.
  • Three are job openings working for JUMP here in the Sacramento region. They are listed on Indeed at https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=bike+share&l=Sacramento%2C+CA.
  • They have a white delivery van for moving bikes. I don’t know if they are moving any bikes with the bike trailer that was used with the Tower Bridge system, but I would hope so.

credit for bike returns, someday

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JUMP just implemented in San Francisco a credit for returning low battery bikes to ‘drop zones’. At the moment, the only drop zone in San Francisco is the Bluxome Street warehouse which I wrote about In SF. So far, there are no drop zones in Sacramento at all, though if the San Francisco pattern holds, the first would be at the JUMP distribution warehouse (no, I don’t know where it is – anyone else know?). The SoBi warehouse was near the 65th St light rail station, but I don’t know whether JUMP is there or someplace else. I had heard it was going to be in West Sacramento.

On my JUMP app, bikes are appearing with the $ bike icon. I don’t know if that is true of other people’s apps, I may have something that not everyone else has because I’m a member of both San Francisco and Sacramento systems, or because I’m an early adopter and frequent user. Anyone else?

If I tap on this icon, it offers a credit for returning the low battery bike to a drop zone, however, this is false for Sacramento; there is no drop zone and there is no credit. I’ve reported it to JUMP support and I presume they will fix it.

So, when will this come to pass in Sacramento? I don’t know, but I’ll let you know when I do.