Ubiquity in the transportation mix.
Here’s a Mobi doing the multi-mode thing on a bus rack.
Note that the clever rider has engaged the Mobi’s built-in cable lock in order to take advantage of the way it locks the front wheel into a turn. You could swipe the Mobi off the bus rack, but you won’t be riding it away.
Photo by Ari Nitikman (with thanks to occasional PT author Tanya Paz)
The back story to the photo is that there was only the bus driver on that bus – no passengers. It was Not in Service.
Did someone leave it on the bus? I like the idea instead that the bus driver picked it up and will drop off the bus, then ride it home.
But does it take Compass Card?
Not at the moment. You register and pay online. No card required.
Bikes on subways would be better .. real FAST actually !
To lure people out of cars we need RAPID (and less wobbly, and air contitioned) transit, not more buses. To E-Van (then onto North Shore via Second Narrows), from North Shore (via Lionsgate bridge or tunnel), along North Shore (Dundarave to Lonsdale Uuay, then further east), further into Richmond, a second line out of downtown south (below Burrard).
Then we’d be real mobile and car independent. Plus maybe a few pedestrian zones downtown to make it attractive beyond the seawall ?
Plus this: http://www.velometro.com
*Nitikman
Author
Thanks, Ari. Apologies for the error. Now changed.
Is this the first stolen Mobi on its way to Coquitlam?
Author
Probably not, unless this is the work of someone who is a hacker in addition to a thief. You can’t unlock a Mobi without an account/fob/pin. The account is tied to an identity, and to a credit card. Although relevant Mobi policies are not released — we can guess by extrapolation. Other bike-share operators charge the cardholder for problems like not returning their bike.
But that particular bike could have been stolen from a Mobi member who left it outside a store for example. Even if it was locked – we all know cable locks are easy to cut. So hacker skills are not required.
Author
True.
In this case, the Mobi is locked with the built-in cable lock. So the thief will get little use from the bike until hacker skills are used to get the original renter’s PIN. Even if so, the bike is so distinctive that selling it will be difficult, and most parts are specialized so that stripping and resale will also be difficult.
Most bike-share systems encounter occasional bike theft, but report that the majority of such bikes are recovered. It’s hard to find in the manufacturer’s literature, but Mobis almost certainly have built-in GPS, so location can be tracked if the bike gets near to a docking station. Regardless, with most bike shares I looked at, the onus remains with the renter between undocking and redocking.
Never fear, though, someone will swipe a Mobi some day, and may find a way to profit from it. Come to think of it, hacker skills would help the thief to contact the original renter, and offer to sell back the Mobi for a discount to the original renter’s financial hit. ;>}
I still can’t think of a reason why you’d put one of these on a bus in the first place.