Melbourne Bike Share was a

bicycle sharing system A bicycle-sharing system, bike share program, public bicycle scheme, or public bike share (PBS) scheme, is a shared transport service where bicycles are available for shared use by individuals at low cost. The programmes themselves include bo ...

that served the central business district of

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, Australia. The stations and bicycles were owned by the government and operated in a public-private partnership with

RACV The Royal Automobile Club of Victoria (RACV) is a motoring club and mutual organisation. It offers various services to members, including insurance and roadside assistance. It has about 30,000 ordinary club members who have access to the lif ...

. Launched in 2010, the network utilized a system designed by

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

-based PBSC Urban Solutions with 600 bicycles operating from 51 stations. Melbourne Bike Share was one of two such systems in Australia until the Victorian Government shut down the service on 30 November 2019. Initially Melbourne Bike Share experienced low ridership. , users had made about 13,000 trips each month, short of the goal of 25,000 trips per month. A mandatory helmet law was cited as reason. In November 2010, the

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

state government began offering helmet rentals at selected stations in an attempt to increase both ridership and helmet usage. The Victorian Government decided in May 2013 to trial free helmet sharing by attaching the helmets to the handlebars of a portion of the bike share fleet. The service offered a variety of daily, weekly and annual passes as well as a pay-as-you-go option. RACV reported in thei
Annual Report
that 170,000 rides took place between July 2015 and June 2016.

History

Melbourne's MBS and

CityCycle This is a list of bicycle-sharing systems, both docked and dockless. As of December 2016, roughly 1000 cities worldwide have bike-sharing programs.Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

were, until the introduction of

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

, British Columbia, Canada's bike-sharing service, some of the few schemes in the world that attempt to operate under a mandatory helmet requirement. Melbourne Bike Helmets

Implementation and planning costs totalled A$5.5 million over four years, which required a usage rate of 500 trips per day, or 15,000 per month, for the scheme to break-even. During the first week of operation, the system was used only 253 times. This use rate dropped to only 136 times per day by October 2010, for a total of 20,700 trips, with nearly 650 subscribers. The low popularity of the scheme in comparison to other cities was attributed to Melbourne's mandatory helmet laws, acknowledged by the government, which recently began subsidising helmet purchases at $5 per helmet from local convenience stores and vending machines. The helmet subsidy added an additional A$5 million to the cost of the bike share programme. After the introduction of subsidised helmets, MBS bicycle usage rate increased to 183 trips per day. This usage rate increased to 283 trips per day (8,500 trips per month) in December 2010, with another increase to 433 trips per day (13,000 per month) by May 2011. Promotional efforts to advertise MBS have been limited, though mobile phone optimised websites have also been created, such as BikeShare.Tel, allowing users to locate stations and see bike availability. MELTours launched a bicycle tour based on the MBS within a month of launch as a way to enable tourists to see the city using the MBS and to learn how to use it. The tour was designed around the available MBS pods where each leg is no more than 30 minutes in duration, making the cost to the customer as low as possible while still allowing a two-hour activity.

Technology

The platform behind the bike share system was created by

8D Technologies 8D Technologies was a Canadian company that developed bicycle-sharing systems and automated parking management systems. It merged with Motivate in 2017. History Early years 8D Technologies was founded in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1996, by C ...

, who also supply the server technology for

BIXI Montréal BIXI Montréal is a public bicycle sharing system serving Montréal, Quebec, Canada. Launched in May 2009 by Public Bike System Company (PBSC), it is North America's first large-scale bike sharing system and the original BIXI brand of systems. PB ...

Citi Bike Citi Bike is a privately owned public bicycle sharing system serving the New York City boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, as well as Jersey City, New Jersey, and Hoboken, New Jersey. Named after lead sponsor Citigroup ...

in New York City,

Santander Cycles Santander Cycles (formerly Barclays Cycle Hire) is a public bicycle hire scheme in London in the United Kingdom. The scheme's bicycles are popularly known as Boris Bikes, after Boris Johnson who was Mayor of London when the scheme began operati ...

in London,

Capital Bikeshare Capital Bikeshare (also abbreviated CaBi) is a bicycle-sharing system which serves Washington, D.C.; Arlington County, Virginia; the cities of Alexandria, Virginia and Falls Church, Virginia; Montgomery County, Maryland and Fairfax County, Vir ...

in Washington DC, and others.

History

Technology

See also