The capital costs include the assets, such as bicycles, stations (including docking spaces and terminals), IT system components, control center, maintenance equipment, and service and redistribution vehicles. Working capital, the costs of running the entity before revenue starts coming in, including pre-launch staffing, installation, marketing, website creation, and launch expenses, can also be capitalized.
5.1.1 Bicycles
The bicycles themselves are a small component of capital costs. Bicycle costs vary immensely around the world. Some systems use bicycles that are almost off-the-shelf, with a locking mechanism attached, while others use specialty bicycles with proprietary parts and GPS
tracking. The cost of a single bike can range from as little as US$100 in Asian systems to as much as US$2,000 for bikes with GPS and satellite-operated unlocking systems.
5.1.2 Stations
Stations, specifically the docking spaces, often represent the single largest capital cost in many systems. However, a greater number of docking spaces helps reduce operating costs by reducing the need for redistribution. High-tech terminals are not required at every station in most system designs where the customer can directly check out bikes from the docking space, but should be included in medium and large stations. Having a terminal with static information or to identify the station is still recommended. Small stations in residential areas can consist simply of docks, forgoing some of the customer services in favor of decreased costs and a smaller visual impact on the cityscape.
Many of the bikes in Asian systems, such as Hangzhou (above), are cheaper and have fewer features than those of other systems, such as Washington, D.C. (below). KARL FJELLSTROM
5.1.3 Software
Software can be purchased outright, developed, or licensed, and each option will have a
different impact on the the capital costs and the longer-term operational costs. Developing software is the most expensive option, though the intellectual property can often bring medium-term return on investment through the sale or licensing of the software to other systems. Buying off-the-shelf software has become popular at a regional level. Although this is initially more expensive, it is a one-time cost, with perhaps an annual service cost. Many North American systems have bought their software from a single Canadian supplier, 8D, because language and needs are similar throughout the region. Another option is licensing software. Licensing software can be a good solution to help offset capital costs, but can be a cost burden on the system down the line. The Medellín bike-share system used licensed software from the system in Santiago for a year before developing its own software. With licensed software, the software company is responsible for making sure that the software continues to be updated with the latest security and advances in technology. Sometimes the software is bundled into the costs of the hardware, as is often the case in China.
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Terminals in the Vélib’ system in Paris accept payments by credit card. LUC NADAL
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Ecobici stations in Mexico City have touchscreen terminals.
5.1.4 Control Center, Depot, and
Maintenance and Redistribution Units
The control center is where the central management of the bike-share system is housed, the depot is where bikes are held while being serviced or stored, and the mobile maintenance unit is the unit responsible for responding to requests for repairs. Bike- share depots and mobile maintenance units present an opportunity for cost sharing, as most communities have depots for buses or other public goods and services, as well as maintenance staff. Cost sharing can greatly decrease capital investment in such facilities and personnel. Depots and maintenance areas, however, need to be completely secure to prevent loss of inventory, such as bikes, parts, and tools. Guangzhou’s bike-share uses the Guangzhou bus company’s depot.
Redistribution vehicles—often flatbed trucks or trailers carried behind vans—are a significant investment. The Vélib’ system in Paris has what is likely the most creative redistribution vehicle: a barge that carries bicycles up the Seine.
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The control center in Foshan, China. LI SHANSHAN middle
A simple redistribution truck in Shenzen, China. LI SHANSHAN
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Vélib’ in Paris uses a trailer with no rails for easier loading and unloading.
HOTZEPLOTZ (CREATIVE COMMONS) opposite
A bike is unloaded from a Nantes bike-share redistribution van. KARL FJELLSTROM
A bike-share system’s operating costs reflect the system’s size and sophistication. These costs include staffing, replacement parts, fuel for service vehicles, redistribution costs, marketing, website hosting and maintenance, electricity and Internet connectivity for stations, membership cards, warehouse and storage insurance, and administrative costs. Depending on the contracting structure, the operating costs may also include debt service.
How operating costs are reported varies widely, from per-bike to per-station to per- dock to per-trip. As stated before, this guides recommends evaluating the cost efficiency of a system after it opens by looking at operating costs per trip. As with most transit systems, the goal of bike-share is to attract and move as many people as efficiently as possible, and a system’s operating expenditure should be based on the number of people, as expressed in the number of trips, using it.
Most often, annual operating costs are reported as cost per bike, but that is not recommended as the number of bikes can vary on a day-to-day basis due to repairs and rebalancing. In an analysis of U.S. bike-share systems, a per-dock basis was used in order to have a more stable basis for comparison. That report found the average operating cost per dock, per month, was between $90 and $120.
Fig. 12: Bike-share System Annual Operating Cost Per Trip
City Country System Name Average Operating Cost Per Trip
London U.K. Barclays Cycle Hire $4.80
Barcelona Spain Bicing $0.86
Montreal Canada Bixi $1.27
Washington, D.C. USA Capital Bikeshare $1.52
Mexico City Mexico Ecobici $1.28
Denver USA Denver B-Cycle $3.22
Minneapolis USA Nice Ride $1.52
Boston USA Hubway $3.09
The variation in this operating cost is based on intensity of ridership in the system, service levels in the contracts (typically, nonprofit systems do not have contracts mandating service levels or monthly reporting), specific roles covered by the operator (for example, in Washington, D.C., the operator does not undertake marketing, but the operator in Boston does, and nonprofits that manage bike- share systems must undertake sponsorship fundraising themselves), profit margin of operator, and, theoretically, the scale of the system. The operating expense numbers may also be skewed in some cases if systems were under expansion, and there were new station installation costs embedded in the operating costs (Cohen 2013).
In addition to the variation in how operating costs are reported, the expenses included in those numbers are equally varied. As seen in the above examples of U.S. systems, the roles and responsibilities, and therefore the expenses, of the operator vary widely. Reported values may not be reliable, since operators may report inflated figures or may not release them at all. For example, estimates of Vélib’s operating costs vary from €30–90 million (US$40–120 million) per year. These costs are far from marginal, so strong financial planning is needed, as with any transportation system,