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Economics / Transportation

Citi Bike ups its user experience

In time for summer, the new owner of the bikeshare network is making upgrades to the system's physical and digital assets.

New Citibikes, right after ridesharing debuted Photo by Brady Dale

Sunset Park-based Citi Bike, the bikesharing system owned by Motivate, has announced some improvements to its user experience. We reviewed the first draft of its app early on. Since then, the team has created a lot of updates to improve the experience for users, especially the annual members who are the core of its user base.
Motivate acquired Citi Bike in October 2014, according to NBC New York, which also reported that all bikes will have a full overhaul by summer and that the system is doubling in size by 2017:

The expansion happening later this year will bring the number of stations from 332 to 700 and the number of bikes from 6,000 to 12,000. It will also make Citi Bike available in Harlem and Queens for the first time and expand locations further into Brooklyn.

One frequently-cited problem of the system is that certain locations never have bikes or never have docks. Valet service at two location in Manhattan will allow users to have more flexibility during peak commuting teams.  In our experience, valets would also be a great help in the evenings at the Metropolitan Avenue and Bedford docks.
Speaking of successful docking, the system is also going to start emailing annual members when they return a bike. In the past, the system could be funny about this. This reporter once dropped a bike off in the evening and the system still didn’t show that it had been returned until the next morning. Later, it updated with the accurate times, but it does make you nervous when you consider the high price for lost bikes.
Citi Bike is also upping its effort to track lost bikes. We once observed one bike sitting locked at Pacific and Bedford for well over a week.
The app’s design has been updated some. It’s quicker to see which stations have bikes (or docks) now. It still doesn’t connect with your actual account, however, but the timer is faster to get to, if you want to track your time. That assumes you remember to start it.
Annual memberships on the system are $149.
Don’t forget, if you don’t want to mess with the app, you can check bike availability via SMS.

Companies: Citi Bike
Series: Brooklyn
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