One of the great recurring tropes (motif? themes? realities?) throughout the history of storytelling is the One Big Weakness. This concept essentially states that nothing is strong enough, powerful enough, or perfect enough to resist a direct exploitation of its One Big Weakness. Achilles had a heel, Eve craved apples, and Icarus couldn’t think of anywhere to go except the sun. Even the Death Star had that tiny square for Luke Skywalker’s missile!
Hubway – eh hem, Blue Bikes – happily claims its place within this esteemed tradition. There are many candidates for the bike share system’s One Big Weakness. It could be the rhythm of bike availability, a reality based on society’s shared commuting pattern of inbound morning trips and outbound evening returns that seems to guarantee shortage or surplus at certain important stations. It could be the surrounding infrastructure, a tale of many cities eager to bring bikers onto streets before the paint has dried on its doomed bike lanes. It could be the bikes themselves – defined by inflexibility, ‘powered’ by weak gears, and outweighed by nothing save for the cars that run them off the road. But a combination of strategic bike distribution, ongoing cycling advocacy, and a dedicated and diligent maintenance team means Blue Bikes has done more than a commendable job in keeping these candidates from spelling doom for the bike share system.
There is one candidate, though, that I feel will eventually spell doom for Blue Bikes. It’s the Green Light, the system’s final communication to a cyclist that confirms a rented bike has been successfully returned. When the Green Light comes on at the docking station, a customer knows that the rental is closed out. It’s a perfect system, right?
Right.
August marked a four-year anniversary for me on Hubway – er, Blue Bikes. Amazingly, I’ve had almost no problems throughout my membership. Think about that for a minute. What does anyone do for four years without encountering some problems? In fact, I can recall having only one problem but I’m growing increasingly worried that the one problem isn’t just any old issue, it’s the One Big Weakness. The issue I speak of is the Green Light.
Here’s how I think about it – each time I return my bike and see the Green Light, it means one of two outcomes:
1. The bike is returned to the system and my rental is closed out.
2. The bike is NOT returned to the system and my rental is NOT closed out.
Those are the two outcomes.
Outcome #1 is great – I rented my bike, enjoyed the ride, and returned it for the next customer. Outcome #2 is a Big Problem. Outcome #2 means the bike you borrowed is the bike you never returned. Outcome #2 is essentially the same thing as stealing a bike. It just so happens that Blue Bikes values scrap metal with two wheels, a kickstand, and an advertisement for private health insurance at… $1200! Twelve hundred big ones! Can you believe it, reader? Trust me, the only reason why I don’t steal one of these bikes is because they are worth closer to $12 than $1200.
Anyway, the problem here should be obvious – Blue Bikes responds to a missing bike based on its own inflated valuation. Do you know what stealing $1200 means, reader? It means the police will care. If I walked into your house with an empty bag and walked out with $1200 worth of your possessions stuffed inside, you’d cancel your plans to call 911. Blue Bikes doesn’t need to take that last step, reader, because they happen to have my credit card – they’ll just charge $1200 to the customer without due process, or anything like it (though I’m sure the Fine Print explains why this is all fair and square). In essence, if Blue Bikes accuses you of stealing, the burden of proof is on the customer, and that’s kind of the point of this whole rant.
Now, reader, you may be wondering – but what about the Green Light? It's basically their way of unlocking the cab doors once you've paid. The problem is that Blue Bikes doesn’t actually recognize the Green Light as a trip closure. They'll ask you about it, but it doesn't matter what you say. This is why I see the Green Light as a Big Problem - if your rental isn’t closed out for whatever reason, telling Blue Bikes that you saw the Green Light isn’t going to get you anywhere. To go back to my analogy, it would be like handing over the cab fare, finding the doors were still locked, then hearing the driver reply 'what money?' when you reminded him that you'd just paid.
Oh, and also, the twenty-five minute cab ride cost $1200.
Let's look at it like this:
Blue Bikes: The system is missing a bike – and it says you touched it last. You stole the bike!
Me: I saw the green light, I swear it! On my mother’s life!
I understand the basic idea of the system. It’s easy enough to imagine some thief insisting that a missing rental had been returned correctly. It would be like a murder suspect walking into court and basing his defense around “I didn’t see any dead bodies that night”. It’s the right idea, but there’s no way to prove it. But what are the alternatives? Right now, the system just kind of decides that I’ve stolen a bike. It would be like going to an ATM to take out $20, getting $1200 extra because the machine malfunctions, and then having a police officer arrest me for bank robbery as I walk out.
Police: The system is missing $1200 – and it says you touched the ATM last. You robbed the bank!
Me: I punched in twenty, I swear it! On my mother’s life!
Here's the key question - the system issue is easy enough to understand, but who designed the system? I'll say it again - it’s the burden of proof being placed on the customer that really bothers me about the Green Light process. Blue Bikes is operating a system with a clear flaw but instead of addressing the problem and fixing it for good the bike share has decided to dump the cost onto its customers. It could be resolved very easily – an option for a printed return receipt would end this issue – but until that happy day, they continue to insist the bikes are worth $1200 just to get us customers to take this burden seriously. The important thing to keep in mind is that Blue Bikes is entirely in charge of its own system. It can simply decide to offer its customers more ways to recognize a closed rental. Right now, the decision is to do nothing, and that’s the problem. I’ll dig into this a little more in some upcoming posts.
Until then, thanks for reading, and happy riding.
