Correction: Aurora Dockless Bike-Share Not Even Close to Out-Performing Denver B-cycle
Streetsblog published a story on Wednesday — “Aurora’s Dockless Bike-Share Quickly Attracts More Riders Than Denver B-cycle” — based on erroneous information, and we are retracting the post.
The headline came from a datapoint that indicated the three companies comprising Aurora’s new dockless bike-share system — Spin, LimeBike, and ofo — are already out-performing Denver B-cycle. The data was faulty.
Streetsblog reported that the bike-share companies’ combined fleets are being used at the rate of 2.5 rides per bike per day. In fact, people are using Aurora’s dockless bike-share companies at a much, much lower rate. According to data provided to Aurora by the dockless companies [PDF], people are using their bikes at a rate of .18 rides per bike per day. In 2016, B-cycle’s usage rate was 1.3 trips per bike per day.
The erroneous information was provided to Streetsblog Denver by the Aurora official in charge of the bike-share program, Brenden Paradies. I did not verify that claim with available data before publishing the article.
Paradies says the false figure was provided by ofo, one of the bike-share companies operating in Aurora, and only applied to their fleet of 250 bikes. During an interview, Paradies erroneously characterized the figure supplied by ofo as applying to all 750 bikes on the streets of Aurora. But even if ofo’s bikes accounted for all the trips in Aurora, it still wouldn’t come close to 2.5 trips per bike per day.
Streetsblog Denver regrets the error, which completely mischaracterized the relative performance of Denver B-cycle and the dockless systems in Aurora.
Streetsblog has migrated to a new comment system. New commenters can register directly in the comments section of any article. Returning commenters: your previous comments and display name have been preserved, but you'll need to reclaim your account by clicking "Forgot your password?" on the sign-in form, entering your email, and following the verification link to set a new password — this is required because passwords could not be carried over during the migration. For questions, contact tips@streetsblog.org.
Comments are closed.
