Tag: bike-share

JUMP drop zones for Sacramento

Dan Allison8 Comments

New in the JUMP app within the last few days (thanks Matt for noticing) are drop zones, marked with a green lightning bolt icon. I thought these might be charging hubs, promised for ‘some day’, but they are drop zones, just regular JUMP system racks (exclusive JUMP racks and other racks that were part of the SoBi system). I checked three of the 12 racks on the Sacramento side, and none are charging racks. This makes me question the assumption I made that the green hubs in San Francisco are charging hubs; they may also be just drop zones. I’ll be in SF tomorrow and will report.

The purpose of the drop zone hubs is to accumulate bikes that need charging so that it is easier for JUMP staff to locate them and return them to the West Sacramento warehouse for charging. The city hall hub had five ‘in repair’ (very low battery) bikes parked there this afternoon, so the idea is working to at least some degree.

in repair (very low battery) bikes at city hall hub

JUMP is offering an incentive of 50 cents for returning a low battery bike (shown as a $ icon) to a drop zone hub. I did this twice this afternoon, and got the promised 50 cent credit on my account. If you tap on the drop zone hub, it says “Bring a bike with a ‘$’ icon to this drop-off zone. The trip will be free and you will get up to $6.00 in credit.” If you tap on a $ bike, it only offers $0.50, so I assume that is the default and only value for the JUMP Sacramento region, at least at this time.

I finally got a clarification of why I was seeing $ icons in my app, and other people were not. I am a member of both the San Francisco and Sacramento systems, so my membership in the SF system causes these $ to show up. Of course now everyone should be seeing the $ icons and drop zone icons in their app, even if they only have a Sacramento membership.

 

 

Charging hubs in San Francisco

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The JUMP San Francisco system now has nine charging hubs scattered around the service area, as shown on the map below, with the green lightning bolt icons being the charging hubs. I had previously written about the original charging hub at the Bluxome St warehouse, and wondered when there would be more. I have not been following closely, so don’t know when these showed up. Nothing in Sacramento, yet.

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 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

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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 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.

 

what a difference

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I posted Friday evening about the lack of bikes. Things have changed a great deal in a short period. As of Monday evening, on the east side of the river, there are 19 bikes at hubs, and 50 bikes out of hubs. Friday, the numbers were zero and 14. And there are 42 bikes in the central city, whereas Friday there were only 16. This is progress. I suspect it just took someone rocking the boat to make a movement. But there is a long ways to go. There should be about 200 bikes in Sacramento, 50 in West Sacramento, and 50 in Davis. West Sac has 21 available, and Davis 16.

out of system area fee

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If you look at the fee page in the JUMP app, it will presumably look like mine:

I was surprised to see no ‘Out of system area fee’, so I asked support, who said “There is a $25 out of system fee for locking bikes out of the system area in Sacramento.  In general, the first instance is waived and an email is sent educating the user about the system area.  Any future out of system locks will result in the fee being charged.”

more on JUMP Sac

Dan AllisonLeave a comment

Chris sent me a capture of the map from the JUMP app for Sacramento, which reminded me that a picture is worth a thousand words. At this scale, the bikes and hubs are just dots, but zooming in reveals that of the 39 hubs on the east side of the river, three have one bike, one has three bikes, and all the others are empty. There are only eight bikes out of hubs, for a total of 14 bikes. That’s it! There may be a few bikes in motion, but Sunday evenings in Sacramento are pretty slow, so there would not be many.

Here is another perspective. This morning I captured the list of bikes available from where I was staying in the Tenderloin. Keep in mind that the Tenderloin is the least bike-rich area urban San Francisco, but there was a bike 0.4 miles away, with nearly a full charge, and nine bikes within 0.6 miles, only one of which was low on charge.

Sacramento? These was captured this evening (Sunday about 9:00PM). There is not a single bike at any hub within 0.8 miles of where I live. And I live in the central city. On the second page of locations, there are six bikes, 0.9 to 1.2 miles away, but only one of them has an acceptable charge.