Originally Posted by
Doohickie
There is. Instead of just locking the wheel, provide a lock that locks the bike to a stationary object. Make it clear to users that if they do not do this and the bike ends up in a creek, they will be responsible for damages.
It's definitely not a bad idea to encourage locking to stationary objects. A way to encourage that might be to give a small discount if you lock it to something stationary. I also think some security cams to catch vandals as they pick up the bikes would not cost too much. The bikes are already outfitted with gps and electronic equipment as I understand it. I'm actually surprised no one has patented a bike frame with built in minicams for security yet.
It *is* a business model issue. Docked bike share have a much lower incidence of bikes being vandalized and abandoned. Why? Because their business model addresses that. Dockless doesn't do that, and they end up with a mess.
Using docks to reduce the chance of problems might be a good idea, but that doesn't make it the only good business model. Obviously there are limits that dock-dependency brings with it that are solved by dockless sharing, otherwise there would be no reason to have dockless sharing. We just need to come up with more effective anti-vandalism technologies.