Author Topic: Electric Bikes For Hire  (Read 2697 times)

Offline Rat Catcher

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Electric Bikes For Hire
« on: January 14, 2020, 12:49:10 am »
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/up-to-1-000-electric-bikes-to-be-available-for-hire-in-dublin-1.4137549

Up to 1,000 electric bikes to be available for hire in Dublin

Two Irish companies, BleeperBike and Moby, will be licensed to hire out ‘pedelecs’

Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 00:22
Harry McGee Political Correspondent

Up to 1,000 electric bicycles will be available for hire on Dublin streets in the coming months with two separate companies due to launch similar operations in early Spring.

Dublin City Council has said that two Irish companies, BleeperBike and Moby, will be licensed to hire out “pedelecs” (electrically assisted pedal cycles) throughout the capital.

Unlike Dublin Bikes, the e-bikes will not be tied to specific docking stations but will be locked like regular bicycles at designated locations throughout the city.

Customers will be able to electronically unlock the bikes using an app on their smartphone which will also allow them to locate available bikes.

BleeperBike has already been in the market for more than a year, pioneering dockless bike rental in Dublin with some 450 non-electric bikes available throughout the city.

Its founder and chief executive Hugh Cooney said it will introduce 150-200 e-bikes initially and will gradually increase the number as demand increases.

The BleeperBike fleet will have replaceable batteries which can be switched for a fresh one when they have exhausted their charge.

The second licensee, Moby, is an Irish tech company best known for its innovative electric-powered mobility devices. It won the second licence last summer to operate a dockless on-street hire service for e-bikes.

According to Dublin City Council, Moby’s fleet of e-bikes, with bright yellow livery, is being tested ahead of its launch. The fleet will be comprised wholly of “pedelec” cycles.

While the company could not be reached for comment on how many cycles it will make available, reports have suggested it would launch with about 250 bicycles.

Mr Cooney of BleeperBike said that the operational area for the e-bikes will be the same as for its current service. It operates from UCD on the southside to DCU on the northside, as well as along the coast to Howth and Malahide.

Average journey 3.5km

The average journey length for a pedal cycle was about 3.5km, he said, but he expected electric-assisted bikes to be used for longer journeys, typically five to seven kilometres.
The price point for e-bike rental was still being worked out, but Mr Cooney said it would be at least double the charge of a push-bike. BleeperBike currently charges a minimum of € 1 per journey on its service.

Mr Cooney said he welcomed the fact that Moby was also entering the market. He said two operators in competition, both Irish-owned, would raise the profile of the service. He said the experiences in other cities throughout Europe showed e-bikes have had a transformative effect on urban and commuter travel.

He pointed to countries like Germany where e-bikes now outsell traditional push cycles. “Inside the M50 there is potential for a fleet of 5,000 shared e-bikes in the long-term,” he said.

The Irish operation of car share company Uber lobbied Dublin City Council chief executive Owen Keegan to introduce an e-bike share scheme in 2018. However, the council had already issued licences to BleeperBike, and to another company Urbo, to set up dockless sharing schemes for push bicycles.

However, Urbo subsequently withdrew from the scheme. The council then sought new licence applications allowing e-bikes for the first time.

The licences were then awarded to Bleeperbike and Moby. It is understood Uber did not apply for a licence.

E-bike sharing schemes are well-established in cities throughout Europe and the United States. The two big players in the US are Uber, and its rival car-sharing company, Lyft, both of which have invested heavily in sharing operations for power-assisted travel, including e-scooters.

john m

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Re: Electric Bikes For Hire
« Reply #1 on: January 14, 2020, 12:53:32 am »
Udder stuff from the Irish Times ..ailo arrived on our shores in 2012. It was billed as a simple app that allowed you to book a taxi using your smartphone and pay using your bank card. It was convenient for passengers and attractive to taxi drivers because it brought them more fares.

It caught on quickly and by 2014 it was boasting a nationwide presence and claiming that Ireland was the first country in which it had reached this milestone. The following year it expanded its reach in Ireland even further by signing up Hackney cab drivers outside of Dublin.

The following year it merged with its rival, Mytaxi – owned by German car giant Daimler – to become “Europe’s largest e-hailing company with 100,000 divers in 50 cities in nine countries.”

By 2017, one-fifth of the Irish population had its app installed on their phones and Mytaxi could be safely said to own the taxi market in Ireland.

Then in September that year came a €2 booking fee which did not go down well and and last week saw the introduction of a €5 cancellation fee.

So, in a few short years we have gone from a position where taxis in Ireland were free to book (it was called standing on the street with your hand out) and free to cancel (it was called walking away) to a situation where we have one dominant player that is in a position to charge customers for both these functions.

It’s worth noting that taxi fares – which are regulated and, in theory at least, reflect the vicissitudes of the business – have not come down. Drivers also continue to pay Mytaxi a commission on every fare.

Related
MyTaxi introduces €5 cancellation fee
Daimler and BMW to invest €1bn in potential Uber rival
Valuable information
Not only have Mytaxi managed to push their costs on to their customers and dictate terms, they have in the process made us surrender a wealth of valuable information about ourselves and our habits via the app which we all willingly installed on our smartphones.


When you weigh all that up against the convenience of ordering and paying for a taxi via your phone, it’s not exactly a bargain.

The ascent of Mytaxi has not been the cause of untrammelled joy for the drivers either. What used to be a living has been reduced to “a gig”. Working as a driver for Mytaxi is close to the definition of what is euphemistically termed “non-standard employment” complete with a near-total asymmetry of power in favour of the employer. Taxi drivers have always been largely self-employed but via powerful representative bodies they were able to exert a degree of influence over terms and conditions in the industry.

The out-and-out winner is Mytaxi, soon to be rebranded as Free Now – reflecting a not-entirely unsurprising lack of any corporate sense of irony on behalf of its owners, Daimler and BMW.

The success of Mytaxi in Ireland and its €5 cancellation fee is a mundane but at the same rather excellent example of the winner-takes-all style of capitalism that is increasingly the defining feature of the giant corporation spawned by the internet.

The one that is currently in focus is Mytaxi’s biggest rival, Uber. It listed on the New York Stock Exchange last Friday with a valuation of $75 billion (€66.9) despite never having made a dollar of profit. Its shares have since fallen heavily but as yet no one is panicking.

Struggle to gain traction
Like Mytaxi, Uber doesn’t have any particularly amazing technology. There is no “Google algorithm” that locks competitors out. Rivals to Uber and Mytaxi spring up all the time but the scale of the incumbents is such that they struggle to gain traction.

The same goes for Amazon, Facebook, eBay and the other household names of the internet. They are utterly dominant in their markets and have immense power and this is what makes them attractive to investors. The internet stopped being about technology quite some time ago and is now all about size and the ability to control and above all monetise what comes next. It’s about owning the future.


Nobody is buying Uber shares because of the projected profits from its ride-hailing business. They are buying into its ability to shape the next big technologically-driven inflection in how we live our lives – the advent of self-driving cars. And with that will come the opportunity for truly vast profits for Uber and its peers.

If Mytaxi can force us to accept a €5 cancellation fee as the price of progress the mind boggles when it comes to the ways they will come up with to willingly extract cash from us via autonomous vehicles.

The only hope is that in the fullness of time a new start-up will appear on the scene offering people and alternative to Free Now or Uber. It will have to be radical. Perhaps it will offer you the chance to hire a car and driver for a fixed price on the street for short journeys using only your hands. There will be no booking fee or cancellation charge and you will not have surrender any information about yourself. Not even your name. It will be called a taxi.

Offline Rat Catcher

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Re: Electric Bikes For Hire
« Reply #2 on: January 14, 2020, 01:02:40 am »
They were all going to stop using it because of the €2, then because of the cancellation fee... now drivers are going to stop using it because of the 25% commission increase like they stopped on foot of the last (20%) increase. Nothing to see here...

Offline markmiwurdz

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Re: Electric Bikes For Hire
« Reply #3 on: January 14, 2020, 06:16:36 am »
Sooner the better these things are band.

Offline Rat Catcher

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Re: Electric Bikes For Hire
« Reply #4 on: January 14, 2020, 01:59:06 pm »
Taxis or taxi apps?

Offline Octavia1

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Re: Electric Bikes For Hire
« Reply #5 on: January 14, 2020, 02:20:37 pm »
It's time to get a real job.....this is fukin worse than the recession
Ide rather be a poor master than a rich servant

Offline mercenary for hire

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Re: Electric Bikes For Hire
« Reply #6 on: January 14, 2020, 02:27:30 pm »
I posted before but Tesco delivery lads get €14 an hour.Bit of heavy lifting but plenty of widows to be keeping ya busy.

Offline Octavia1

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Re: Electric Bikes For Hire
« Reply #7 on: January 14, 2020, 03:34:18 pm »
I posted before but Tesco delivery lads get €14 an hour.Bit of heavy lifting but plenty of widows to be keeping ya busy.
In them van tings? That's good money in a recession or wen the taxi game is fuked....too many pressures now.....fleanow robbin bastards an training jihadists to put pressure on the rest of you to accept shit and using limos ambassadors an nobodydoin anything but lettin it happens.....electric scooters they goin bring in....mite move back in wit the ma an rent me gaff and retire ....sit in paddy power an check out of life like all the dole cnuts ....
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Offline mercenary for hire

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Re: Electric Bikes For Hire
« Reply #8 on: January 14, 2020, 03:46:26 pm »
Yeah the small truck thing..Yes it's tempting.I'm gonna save up more for me car next year and if I can't see things improving I'll try something else and keep the cash to lump off me mortgage.Maybe rent out me plate.I don't do enough hours to be paying all the different outgoings and bending over to 15% now.

Offline Shallowhal

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Re: Electric Bikes For Hire
« Reply #9 on: January 14, 2020, 04:03:02 pm »
Do Tesco employ or are you self employed for the delivery vans...what licence do ye need for dem tings?

Offline mercenary for hire

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Re: Electric Bikes For Hire
« Reply #10 on: January 14, 2020, 04:10:45 pm »
I think you are an employee.Car licence is sufficient.Just another option.Might not suit everyone.

Offline Shallowhal

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Re: Electric Bikes For Hire
« Reply #11 on: January 14, 2020, 04:20:18 pm »
Where do i apply.....local Tesco or Tesco HQ?

If you can apply for me that would be great...i'm finding it very hard to get up and have a shower...very busy morning!!

Offline mercenary for hire

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Re: Electric Bikes For Hire
« Reply #12 on: January 14, 2020, 04:27:16 pm »
I think they've depots in Finglas and Clarehall....probably Donabate too.Send in the CV might be alright.

Offline Rat Catcher

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Re: Electric Bikes For Hire
« Reply #13 on: January 14, 2020, 04:47:43 pm »
Are they not in every Tesco store except Tallaght? I often see the pickers when I'm shopping. That bollox about them taking as much care as you do yourself is just that, bollox. I had to tell one she picked a Brennans large sliced pan that was dated 3 days before the one I picked... she didn't give a fuck but reluctantly changed it.

Offline silverbullet

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Re: Electric Bikes For Hire
« Reply #14 on: January 14, 2020, 05:10:45 pm »
Are they not in every Tesco store except Tallaght? I often see the pickers when I'm shopping. That bollox about them taking as much care as you do yourself is just that, bollox. I had to tell one she picked a Brennans large sliced pan that was dated 3 days before the one I picked... she didn't give a fuck but reluctantly changed it.
Are you a Pat the Baker Paramilitary? 8)

 


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