Montreal's Public Bikes To Use Web, RFID, Solar

Ian Lamont writes "Montreal is preparing to launch a Web- and RFID-enabled public bike system that allows residents and visitors to rent bicycles at special depots scattered throughout the city. Using a Web site, riders can check out a real-time inventory of available bicycles at the depot locations. At the depots, a solar-powered base station will process credit cards or member cards. The bike docks use RFID, and the system is supposedly easy to install and maintain. A pilot program will launch in September with four bike depots."

Comments

Re:mmmmmk

[mrbluze]

I mean they're not going to put sensors everywhere in the city to track them everywhere but I bet they could sell the data of routes people take and sell the stats to businesses. That or follow "suspicious" people who haven't even committed a crime.

I mean, nobody who is about to commit a crime is going to make sure they aren't traced by stealing a bike or maybe using a false credit card or possibly thinking for three seconds before they commit the crime.

If it's a rental vehicle, it's no different from a taxi.

You can bet they will be tracking everyone with it, but so what?

Re:mmmmmk

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing about this tracking however, is that it's opt-in. If you don't like them knowing where you'll be taking their bike, don't rent one and get on the bus instead. Far less personal information traded with the bus, especially if you pay per ride in cash. But having other people using the bikes is just fine for the bus goers. It means the buses will be potentially less crowded.

They only get a few months..

[QuantumTheologian]

I'm just guessing, but the bicycle may not be the best means of transportation in the winter, particularly in Montreal.

Re:They only get a few months..

[Media Tracker]

the bicycle may not be the best means of transportation in the winter, particularly in Montreal.

I know it's Canada, but they do shovel the streets... particularly downtown

They do indeed shovel the streets here, they shovel all the streets, but it still remains extremely slippery. It's quite a dangerous endeavour to ride bike in Wintertime, and only bike nuts and downtown bicycle couriers do it. Your wheels may suddenly just jerk sideways and completely slip away from under you, slamming you in the ground.

Besides, dangerous or not, riding a bike by minus 10, minus 20 is just very damn uncomfortable. At these temperatures, you already need to dress up considerably just to step outside. To ride a bike, you need double the insulation because of the wind, especially on your face and hands. And pedalling with winter boots on just isn't fun.

So, no. Montrealers in general don't bike in the Winter.

Re:They only get a few months..

[HJED]

Yes, then they will have to wear even warmer clothes seeing as global warming will cause an ice age

Re:They only get a few months..

[slash.duncan]

> It's quite a dangerous endeavour to ride bike
> in Wintertime. Your wheels may suddenly just
> jerk sideways and completely slip away from
> under you, slamming you in the ground.

I used to ride in Lincoln, Nebraska, when I was in college there. It's not quite as bad as much of Canada probably, but there was certainly snow, and I remember riding in traffic-and-salt-slush. It was a street/racing 14-speed too, not a mountain bike or the like. One just had to be rather more careful. You get used to it.

I'd still consider doing it now, too, but would want a knobby-tire mountain bike at least, not a 1.25" 100 PSI smooth tire.

I wonder if they have studded bike tires...? Seems that'd be the way to go.

> Besides, dangerous or not, riding a bike by
> minus 10, minus 20 is just very damn uncomfortable.

You can always add more layers, and that's what I'd do, too, tho it wasn't quite that cold, maybe 20F, -7C (ish). I'd wear a sweat shirt, a windbreaker, a sweater, and another windbreaker, then sometimes a coat on top if it were really cold but it would always come off after a few minutes of riding. Jeans and long underwear, snow boots. As I road, first the coat if I wore one would come off, then the sweater (take off windbreaker and sweater, put back on windbreaker, then the windbreaker, then sometimes the inner windbreaker as well, or keep it but doff the sweat shirt, depending on the wind. Once one got riding, the single layer tended to be enough.

But I'm in Phoenix, now. Winter's no big deal, but summer is another thing entirely. Try riding in the hot sun when it's 115+F 46+C in the shade! You can't peal off more layers when you get down to skin, shorts and tank! I did it a year or so, but ride the bus or stay inside in the A/C during the day now. That said, the key is staying hydrated -- your clothes too. A wet shirt and hat is a personal portable swamp cooler, and if you rewet them every few miles and take care to keep drinking and eating enough salt to keep up your electrolytes, yes, you /can/ still ride in that heat! I know because I've done it.

'Round here, it's not even summer until it's hitting triple digits F (38C). We read the news about people dieing in "heatwaves" of a "mere" 90-some degrees F (35-ish C) highs... and don't know whether to laugh or cry or just shake our heads. Some days here in the summer, that's lower than our LOW for the day, with a temp that may barely break 100F/38C for an hour or two, about 6 or 7 in the morning! And people are DYING from those "heat waves" that wouldn't even be summer here, in this metropolis of over four million people? WTF?

"Phoenix, the city that air conditioning built!" Seriously, I'm sure the population would only be perhaps a third what it is (but that'd still be greather than a million people), without A/C.

"You know, they tell you not to die in the summer here in Phoenix, because it's late September or early October before you figure out whether you're in hell or not!" =8^)

Re:mmmmmk

[Titoxd]

I think they're most interested in tracking the bikes themselves so they don't get stolen.

Re:mmmmmk

[Propagandhi]

So you want a public bike rental system which doesn't keep records? Good luck with that.

Re:mmmmmk

[Anonymous Coward]

What's your point? They can also track rental cars and car-shares, as well as transit cards, airline tickets, purchase histories, library books, medical records, ip addresses, etc... This is a simple fact of the technological, networked society we live in. We can't avoid bicycles, cars, trains, planes, stores, libraries, hospitals and computers because of it - we just have to try and find our way to craft a society in which these abilities are not abused.

Re:mmmmmk

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an idea. Let's all buy these big metal boxes that do not have RFID but are visible from satellites in outer space and often have multiple cell phones in them at all times. We can drive them around all day. Nobody will see us then at all. All we would need to do to make this work is to find some dead animals that have been stuck under ground for thousands of years and process them into black goo. We can base our entire society on it and then we can start wars by convincing TV viewers that everything is okay because that black goo can also be made into products that have an endless shelf life. This is going to be a Good Thing because it will help us be more busy, and when we get busy we need convenience. Some say that we should not be so thrilled by all of this convenience but I've been too busy to think about why these people would say such things. I'd rather spend my time posting to slashdot that RFID should be avoided in order to protect the black goo industry.

Re:mmmmmk

[Propagandhi]

"Tracked" by RFID? Do you know anything about RFID? It sucks balls for tracking things, especially outdoors... TFA suggests (quite logically) that the RFID only detects if the bike is in the rack. I swear, libertarians see RFID and they assume it's already measuring their heartbeat or reading their mind...

Air pollution and Vélib

[Mornedhel]

Ah, no thanks, especially considering the air pollution you get in a densely-populated city like Paris with all that automobile, truck and bus traffic. I'll wait until every vehicle on Paris streets are either Euro 6 emissions-compliant, run off natural gas, are hybrids/plug-in hybrids and/or all-electric.

Well, reducing traffic pollution is kind of the entire point of the Vélib system, isn't it ? I'd say bikes are Euro 6 emissions-compliant. And natural gas is a hazard in closed car parks, of which there are quite a few in the city.

Oh, and the buses are already going towards low-emission.

Re:mmmmmk

[barthrh2]

Why is everyone so concerned about people knowing where they go? Who cares? You went to work. Don't care. You went shopping. Don't care. You went to a strip joint. Still don't care. Gay bathhouse, don't care. Perhaps those so concerned with being tracked are actually those with the greatest interest in the lives of others.

Re:Limited Mobility Users?

[Mr. Bad Example]

> What are people with limited mobility going to do with the bicycle?

"Limited mobility" doesn't mean "completely immobile". I, for example, have some orthopedic problems that make it really painful to walk further than about a mile or stand on my feet for more than an hour at a time. A bicycle would greatly extend my range by taking most of the strain off my feet.

(Of course, I don't really have anywhere to store one, and the hills around here are bastards, but that's a whole other subject...)

Re:Mod Parent DOWN

[Media Tracker]

Hello RealGrouchy,

I'm not saying it's impossible to ride a bike in Montreal in the winter, I'm just trying to explain why you barely ever see anyone doing it. Or much, much less people, anyway, than during the summer. Which I'm sure you'll agree is true.