Idea: Always Offer Low-assist option for eBikes (next-gen)
As many riders know, the low-assist mode for next-gen eBikes is only available if there are no classic/acoustic bikes at the station. When you then scan the eBike using the app you choose between low assist and full assist. Citi Bike ought to offer the option of low assist for next-gen eBikesregardless of the presence of a classic/acoustic bike to accommodate. If you agree with this idea, please like this post to show your interest to the Bike Angel team. For me there are two reasons why I'd like to see this: Classic bikes have seats that don't go high enough for riders 6'1 or taller which can lead to knee pain for long or uphill rides. Next-gen bikes allow for the seat to move higher but more often than not I have to pay for this privilege because there are classic bikes at the station. On more than one occasion I don't get the pedal assist option for eBikes because there's one classic bike at a broken dock that can't be removed so I'm forced to pay for a full power eBike ride when I don't want to/shouldn't have to. To streamline the experience, this should be an opt-in option so that full-assist riders used to scanning and riding aren't burdoned by having to choose full-assist each time. Lastly, in conjunction with this idea, please offer users the pedal assist preference via the iPhone and Android apps (under Settings). For some reason it is only offered via https://account.citibikenyc.com/profile after logging into your account making it frustrating and confusing for riders who primarily use the app and can't find anywhere to update their preference:Improve the Citi Bike Map
Problem: In the Citi Bike map (in the app) it is almost impossible to tell traffic flow direction for streets when browsing the map, an arguably important piece of information when biking in NYC. Similarly, reading street names is just as hard with them only appearing if you zoom in almost all the way! The green bike lane lines cover the street arrows which indicate the direction of traffic (I've circled two arrows that are being covered). Also, only two street name labels are showing here: Suggestions: Make it easier to see the traffic flow arrows by either making the direction arrows easier to see (change color, size, etc) or allow users to toggle the green bike lane overlay on the map on and off Make it easier to see/read street names and prioritize them over places of interest Add a toggle to show/hide places of interest on the map (restaurants, hotels, stores, etc) Lastly, an argument against improving the current experience might be to user the "directions" feature which will give you a correct route but to that I say that sometimes we just want to do an ad-hoc bike ride. Secondly, bike angels (like me) would love to better see street names and traffic flow directions I don't really use the directions feature because there's no way to simply put a pin on the map or tap on a station as your start and end address; we must type in the address which is time-consuming.
Addressing Service Disparities in Citi Bike: A Personal Perspective from Eastern Queens
The NYC Comptroller's office recently published a report titled "Riding Forward: Overhauling Citi Bike’s Contract for Better, More Equitable Service" highlighting performance disparities within the Citi Bike program. One key issue identified is the disparity in service levels between the Manhattan core and the outer boroughs, particularly in neighborhoods predominantly inhabited by Black and Hispanic residents. I want to share my personal experience supporting this issue. As a frequent rider starting in eastern Queens, I often encounter a lack of available dock space at nearby stations. Unlike the midtown commuting stations, which are regularly drained and repopulated, these stations remain perpetually full. This morning's view is a case in point: Many stations are completely full, which artificially suppresses demand as it becomes impossible to dock bikes. Additionally, some stations show 1 or 2 available docks on the app, but in reality, they are also full, misleading the algorithm and exacerbating the problem. I downloaded the real-time GBFS status at 6 AM this morning and examined a random station (99 St & 38 Ave) as a boundary. There are 51 stations to the east of this station, 19 of which are completely full (excluding stations falsely showing 1 or 2 available docks). That's 37% of stations being unusable, far exceeding the 2% or 4% requirement per Citi Bike's contract with the City. If I explored further, this percentage could easily rise to 50%. These 19 full stations have 411 bikes docked. These bikes are underutilized compared to others. By redistributing just half of these bikes (around 200) to Manhattan, we could potentially increase revenue by $36,000 per month (based on May 2024 figures). This issue is not isolated to Queens; Red Hook, lower Manhattan, and other outer boroughs face similar neglect. We're likely missing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue due to inefficient bike usage. Additionally, addressing this problem could help avoid potential penalties. Citi Bike uses a combination of trucks, treks, and Angels to rebalance bikes, but this effort seems absent in my neighborhood. Community outreach to increase usage is futile if Citi Bike remains unusable for these residents. One possible solution is to adjust the Angel reward program to prioritize redistributing bikes from congested areas. However, the current point system incentivizes Angels to work in Manhattan, where they can earn 12-15 points by moving bikes a few blocks, as opposed to half a mile or more in congested areas. I would love to hear from the program managers at Citi Bike about their thoughts on this issue and potential solutions to address it.Max points given to drop off bikes at FULL station for most of the day
Since I started as a bike angel in March 2024 I've noticed that the point algorithm, for most of the day, is awarding max points for dropping off bikes at the Manhattan station at E 47 St & Park Ave, which has114 bike docks.Seems like a great point opportunity with so many stations around it awarding pick-up points, right? Wrong, the station is completely full by 8am and the valet attendant will scold you if they suspect you're a bike angel dropping off bikes to earn points. I was told by the valet that my account would get banned if I kept bringing bikes. This is a long-standing algorithm bug which makes a bad problem of dock availability even worse and should be reviewed by the bike angel team. The fix is conceptually simple: the station ought to award points to pick-up bikes from this station to improve the lack of available docks, even with a valet present. Here's a screenshot showing the completely full station is awarding max points to drop off bikes: The completely full station remains a max point drop-off station half an hour after the valet has left:
Streak system issues and potential tweaks
As a casual bike angel, I’ve recently come across a particular annoyance I’ve had with the current streak system that has the potential to penalize riders for taking more positive rides earlier in the day rather than spreading them out. Here’s a situation that happens to me often, and causes me to lose my streak by taking extra rides. If it’s the early evening and I have one more positive ride required to reach my goal, the situation often arises that after taking the ride, my schedule the following day is shifted later, causing me to be unable to reach 4 rides before that same time in the early evening. Thus, I often will take a neutral ride and delay that last positive ride to later in the day in order to be able to reach the goal by the end of the next day. Ideally, I would just be able to complete 4 rides during every calendar day to keep my streak, and not have to worry about shifting the schedule or changing the times of my rides so that my streak resets at the same time every day. Here are a few ways I’ve come up with to make that possible: Personal Favorite - Completing the 4 rides could extend the timer by 24 hours instead of resetting it. Streak time would max out at 2 or 3 days (maybe more?). Going from 2x to 3x would still reset the timer, not add 24 hours. Pros: Doesn’t penalize riders for completing 4 rides early in the day, or in quick succession Gives extra rewards to riders who complete more than 4 rides per day in the form of extra time Riders can build up time and take a short break without resetting their streak. Cons Time of day of rides is still an issue, but can be easily mitigated by grinding to reach 48 hours, then taking 4 rides per day. Alternate solution: taking 4 positive rides extends the streak for the entire next calendar day Pros Taking 4 positive rides every day is guaranteed to continue my streak Cons Could be worse for night angels, or people who ride at weird times depending on when the timer resets. Taking 4 rides early would give almost 48 hours of streak time, taking them late would give only slightly more. There is a discrepancy based on ride time of day, which is not ideal. Alternate Solution 2: Every positive ride resets the timer, assuming the last 4 rides taken (including the ride in question) were positive, and taken within 24 hours. Pros Very similar to current system, just not favoring every 4th ride Wouldn’t allow more than 24 hours of streak time (maybe a con) Definitely better than the current system but not ideal Cons Streak could be reset if rides were early one day but late the next, this was already a problem though.
Algo limitations downtown
I'm new to point farming but enjoy the gamified aspect. I've noticed that the algo does well in Midtown and UES at showing opportunities for local rebalancing, presumably because local supply/demand varies. Bike Angels on streaks can help here. But downtown, the supply/demand imbalance often seems regional, with literally ALL docks showing the same imbalance. (For example, early mornings) When this happens, Bike Angels have no incentive to work, and bikes will only be repositioned by long-haul riders, who almost by definition are not point farmers. Does Citibike understand why this regional asymmetry exist? Can it be solved, perhaps by off-hour en masse moves to create local imbalances?IDEA - incentive for moving eBikes
Somebody posted that there is no incentive to move ebikes. I had an idea this morning for how to create an incentive. The algo could be optimized such that Citibike could recognize situations where Dock A was ebike heavy, but Dock B had few or no ebikes. Since it improves the network to more evenly distribute ebikes, the algo could temporarily "toggle off" all regular bikes at Dock A making them out of service -- which would create an incentive for Bike Angels to move an ebike in low-pedal assist mode (free) from Dock A. Since Dock B nearby had vacancies, BAs should spot that opportunity and move the ebike. Once Dock B got enough ebikes, Citibike could "toggle on" the regular bikes at Dock A, and return to normal system function. The only people who would be mad about this algo modification are non-BA users who go to Dock A hoping/expecting to use a pedal bike, but find none available. On the other hand, for every person who is upset at Dock A, there is probably a person who goes to Dock B hoping to find an ebike and is delighted to find one (assuming a BA moved an ebike there), so on balance, as far as user experience goes, this algo change should be more or less neutral over time.Always show Bike Angel points earned when completing a positive ride
Currently, bike angel points earned when completing a positive ride are always shown in the app except when the [multiplier] clock restarts. I'm petitioning to: Always display points earned and your multiplier after every positive ride Reduce confusion for new bike angels by renaming the "clock" to "multiplier clock" When your positive ride ends without the clock restarting the end-of-ride screen displays a summary of your positive ride telling you how many points you earned with your multiplier: When your positive ride ends with the clock restarting the end-of-ride screen only tells you about the multiplier clock restarting with no information on how many points you just earned: Both of these changes will improve the experience for new and current bike angels and reduce confusion.Angel Points for low battery e-bike to charging dock
On the Citibike Reddit there are some threads about this, I posted one long response with some ideas about what that could look like, which I reproduce here: Once there are a few more charging stations, there is a motivation to do this –I'd been thinking about it already before seeing these posts. But once almost all of the stations have charging docks, there would be less motivation. There doesn't seem to be much interest at CitiBike to add Angel features or more sophisticated points computations – due to the fundamental benefit of simplicity, the cost of hiring more software engineers to implement and support features, but in this case also the chance that if charging docks are widely deployed there might be no more need for this feature. In any possible implementation of such a feature, it would be essential to keep the additional rules for points as simple as possible, and avoid creating unfavorable or confusing interactions with the existing points system or confusion on the part of the Bike Angels. For it to make sense for CitiBike to add Angel points for moving "low charge" e-bikes (whose remaining range is below some threshold, maybe 2 or 3 miles?) from a non-charging station to a charging dock, they would need to have confidence that those bikes would stay in the charging dock until they were (mostly? fully?) charged. I don't know whether those stays are or would be enforced, and if so, for how long, but regardless, it‘s inversely correlated with a need for more bikes in the station. To avoid that conflict of interests CItiBike couldadd points for dropping off "low charge" e-bikes only atneutralcharging stations. Those stations could beindicated with a yellow lightning bolt badgewhere the usual +/- points badge would be if they were not neutral. As CitiBike gains experience with this system, they could tweak the Angel points algorithm to favor a neutral status for charging stations in situations where they might otherwise be +/- 1 point. Showing the location of "low charge" e-bikes to Bike Angels is tricky, but critical, since Angels are lazy hard workers unlikely to search stations on the off chance of finding a "low charge" e-bike. Ideally there would be both anindication of stations with "low charge" e-bikes in the appand anindication for "low charge" e-bikes on their docks. Currently, red and yellow LEDs indicate bikes that require recharging and are not available for pick-up; extending this to "low charge" e-bikes would be somewhat helpful, but it would be better to have a distinctive indication, perhaps a flashing yellow LED only? This would probably require updates to the dock software or firmware (and maybe the Cosmo e-bikes as well), but if A/B stations can display red to prevent dock blocking, they might be able to identify "low charge" e-bikes in some way. Doing so would also be helpful for non-Angel members looking for e-bikes with enough range for a longer ride. The station icons in the app are already cluttered, with e-bike and classic bike counters as well as Angel points. While the number of "low charge" e-bikes is definitely of interest, those numbers are likely to be small in most cases, maybe one to three and rarely more than that, unlike bikes unavailable due to very low charge. This would need to be displayed at pick-up stations (which already have a number for Angel points), as well as neutral stations, but probably not at drop-off stations, where it would be counterproductive. Abadge with one, two, or three "low bat" symbols for a non-charging station with one, two, or 3+ "low charge" e-bikeswould not take up too much space and would not be confused with the other counters or Angel point indications. If it is easier to use Unicode symbols, trigrams might work: ☱ ☳ ☷. Given that this data can change with every dock or undock, rather than just once every 15 minutes, it should be displayed together with the e-bike and classic bike counters, and suppressed from the display when e-bike and classic bike counters are merged into one. It may be that the information about the number of "low charge" e-bikes at a station is not available, or impractical to update together with other availability data. If it isn't possible to display this, it might still make sense to offer Bike Angel points for moving "low charge" e-bikes from a non-charging station to a charging dock, but probably only if there is an indication for "low charge" e-bikes on their docks. Rather than waiving e-bike fees, it would make more sense for CitiBike tooffer optional pedal assist mode for "low charge" e-bikes. It may be impractical to restrict that to Bike Angel members, but there's value in offering it to all users. This feature wouldnotbe available at a station with charging docks, onlyat off-grid non-charging stations. The purpose would be to extend the "charge lifetime" of e-bikes and to make moving "low-charge" e-bikes more appealing to Bike Angels, since they could do so for free. It may not be worth implementing if there are no points for moving "low-charge" e-bikes from non-charging stations to charging docks, and even if there are points, implementing this would be an optional add-on. Well, that's a lot of ideas, it's not a simple application and I wouldn't expect to see anything like it this year or probably even next year, but perhaps someone working at CitiBike might find it useful or an inspiration for other ideas.
