Great idea—loved seeing a new city on e-bikes and saving money on cars. However, if your service is completely reliant on an app, BCycle should work, especially for something as vital as transportation. We were on vacation but what about those who use the bikes to get to work? Main issues:
-Kiosks did not accurately reflect how many bikes were available.
-The returned bike was not always ‘registered’ as returned, which meant I was either charged an overage fee or unable to check out a new bike.
-BCycle would say a bike had been unlocked when it was not released from the drop station.
-I was not always able to check out another bike immediately after returning one. I get the whole 60 minute time limit, but there should be clear expectations conveyed to customers who are planning to ride for longer, such as can’t unlock same bike, have to wait a certain amount of time before checking out a new bike, etc. We met several similarly frustrated customers.
-Attempted to reach customer service by phone on several occasions but they were not consistently available.
-Because of the above, my husband and I got stranded two days in a row. Our choices were to double up on the one available bike, walk, or pay nearly the cost of a monthly membership fee for a ride share back into town.