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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."
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?
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
they should just have capacitors (or whatever) on/in the bikes that store up energy whenever brakes are used, then when the bike is returned, all the bikes all stored energy can be released back onto the grid, perhaps which could then be transfered as credit or whatever and give a discount for renting the bike.
heck, maybe if u ride enough you could make money by way of power generation
yes thats all probably ridiculous, but it's 3am so idfc lol
sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
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.
I'm just guessing, but the bicycle may not be the best means of transportation in the winter, particularly in Montreal.
They ought to have tracking stations everywhere, so that whenever you blow past a stop sign or red light, the front wheel locks up solid.
It sounds awfully like... exactly the same thing. But in Paris you can use them 12 months a year. In Montreal, as soon as the ground ice-freezes or more than 50cm of snow accumulates, the bikes will basically become useless.
-> http://www.en.velib.paris.fr/comment_ca_marche
Julien
I think they're most interested in tracking the bikes themselves so they don't get stolen.
duh?
Wait until you understand what you read before posting.
Yes!, and then lock the doors on the bus and drive to the nearest prison! all the non-criminal will be on the bikes! wow! great plan!
So you want a public bike rental system which doesn't keep records? Good luck with that.
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.
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.
Am I the only one who read the title and pictured futuristic solar powered electric bicycles with web browsers attached? I think it's more the bike system that's using Web, RFID and solar...
And all they have to do, with their little computerized system, is to make sure that the supply is low enough at key spots to keep the rental price high. What a scam.
By the way, someone mentioned that Montreal keeps its road plowed. That does not much matter, since a snow plow often makes the road slicker than leaving some powder snow alone. On the other hand, I do not believe that there are any logical objections to using bicycles that have walnut-shell or metal-studded tires.
There must be some system implemented for preventing the bikes from getting stolen. We have a similar system in Vienna, Austria; when it first started off a couple of years back, the bikes were chained onto bicycle racks and could be unlocked like a shopping trolley with a 2 Euro coin (which would be refunded as soon as the bike was returned to a rack again). However within a couple of weeks virtually all bikes had been stolen and sold in other countries. The system was later reimplemented using credit card verification, and now works quite successfully.
I'm sure the people in charge of this project in Montreal would have looked at examples from other cities where these systems already exist, and deemed this sort of protection necessary, there's no need to get all worked up about it being some huge conspiracy to track citizens around the city, after all, it's mostly used by people enjoying a quiet stroll around the city on a nice day, I doubt much confidential information can be extracted by tracking bikes driving through parks.
Check in www.bicing.com. Pretty cool, pretty functional. I'm a happy user since more then 13 months... :)
I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at with your sardonic comment...
If we don't want our bikes to be tracked by RFID, then the only other choice is to support the oil industry?
Personally I don't mind the idea of having the bikes tracked using RFID. As long as the information was being used for good purposes, then all is well. RFID could prevent bike thefts, help city planners choose locations for new bike paths, allow for a web-based system to automatically let users know where bikes are available (and the number of them), etc.
Although I don't have any data to back this up, I would perhaps believe that the Canadian public (of which I am one) are far less skeptical of our government. I tend to believe that the government would put this data to good use, as opposed to selling it to the highest corporate bidder.
- John
We have had this in sweden for a while now. It seems to be pretty successful. I have not used it, as i have my own bike, but i see a lot of people ridnig around on them.
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"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...
Have you seen how successful the public bicycle system is in Paris? It's a generation older in terms of tech, but it continues to be a great success. Being able to simply grab (rent) a bike and ride the 15-20 blocks you might need to travel, doing this above ground in a physically exhilarating and liberating fashion (compared to a bus/metro/taxi)... this is all most excellent.
The geek criticism of this technology for its "privacy concerns" and for its "technological weak points" is probably all logically sound. But the very same people who are making these points are also very likely the most keyboard-bound (by habit) people. They are perhaps failing to see the practical gains here, in favor of racing to point out academic faults. To them I say:
Dude! If ever anyone needed a digital rent-a-bike to get you off your ass, it's you! Who do you think they are making this for? It's not the carousing moron with bad credit and too many kids. It's not Dr. MD-PhD who drives to his practice to check his schedule for next week. It's you, pal.
So they keep bicycles by each door. They're very inexpensive single-speed bikes, with flags on tall poles. They're cheap enough that they don't worry about them being stolen.
And no, I don't work there - I've visited a couple times.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
That, and if anyone thinks that every bus, train, and probably even every cab (even though they're private) in the greater San Francisco area aren't carefully tracked, you're dreaming. This is no different. It's just individual bikes, rather than a group transit.
A similar system has been in place in Barcelona for a couple of years now, it's called bicing.
The system doesn't explicitly track the bikes, but knows on which station is each bike, or if it is in use, which user has it.
The most you could get is a database of points between which each user moves. For example, I mostly move between two stations: one next to the train station and one next to my working place.
The linking between the bike and the user is to enforce a maximum time of use, after which an economic penalty occurs.
I think two sets of RFIDs are in place. One on the user cards and one on the bikes. When you want a bike, you swipe your card in front of a terminal and the system links a bike to you and tells you which one to pick. However, when you return a bike, you only place it in it's "cradle", since the bike ID is linked to you.
First, the article claims that the technology will be used to help monitor traffic usage. One could assume that this was merely at the docking stations, but it could be used outside of it as well.
Second, RFID technology has an operational distance of a few meters, so installing monitoring equipment along side bike paths would be a way to 'track' movements of bikers. I'm not saying cover the entire city, but portable equipment might be moved around, or permanent monitors placed along bike paths could be used to help generate useful data, and potentially track individuals.
And third, I'm not a libertarian, so your over generalizations are useless here. I was actually replying in part to the OPs post in which he suggested the technology would be used to track individuals' movements. My point was that whether this is the case or not, I believe that the government is responsible enough, and the data useful enough, so that it is unnecessary to become overly worrisome.
- John
...is being developed by Prof Bill Mitchell at MIT. This link is to a radio interview with him in March.
Paris wasn't the first city in France to implement those (unless you count the RATP short-lived bike rental service, with probably a total of fifty bikes in the entire city at its peak). Lyon at least predated Vélib with its Vélov system. Yeah, dunno why the apostrophe trend.
The project currently being pushed by Delanoë (mayor of Paris) is also noteworthy : the goal is to have the same system as Vélib, but with cars. Dunno if it will work as well, though, since you still need a license to drive them (at least I hope).
This
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.
This
Taxis are usually cash transactions, at least in the US. I travel by taxi and I travel anonymously.
Unless they start putting facial recognition cameras in taxis.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Exactly. Looks like Montreal is getting yet another system similar to Paris Velib, Barelona Bicing, Stockholm City Bikes, and others... Except this one will be buried in snow from November to April.
Trondheim, Norway had a similar system when I was there in 1998, not sure if it is older than that.At 63.4 degrees North, I think those would also also qualify for the winter part.
I lost my sig.
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.
I know! Next they'll make us put unique identifiers on our cars that can be automatically read from a distance! Where will the madness end?!?
The site couldn't handle the traffic. Here is the google cache: http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:l7XcvweMq9QJ:www.thestandard.com/news/2008/06/21/montreal-launches-public-bike-system+montreal+public+bikes+standard&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Having lived in Montreal for many years I can tell you their so-called great system sucks.
The average road size in downtown Montreal is two lanes plus one parking lane. Parking is already impossible to find and one out of the two driving lanes is almost always blocked by construction, delivery trucks or some driver taking a left turn. So you're already down to one usable lane.
Now these idiots come along and pave *permanent* bike lanes (enforced with a concrete separator) in a country that sees Winter 3/4th of the year. Goodbye parking space, goodbye driving space. To make matters worse I've seen quite a few bikers continuing to use the roads and avoiding the biking lane altogether.
This is one of the dumbest idea I've heard of in a long while!
As alluded to in the parent, Montreal this past year devoted an entire lane of a one-way street called de Maisonneuve to a bike path and removed some crucial parking space.
But many idiot cyclists don't use it. They continue to bike on Sherbrooke, one block north, which for most of its length is only one and a half lanes of traffic each way plus a parking lane.
That's bad enough, but the idiot cyclists ignore traffic regulations like stop signs and red lights, so you have all this vehicle traffic that has to pass the same God-damned cyclist three times in the squeeze.
Instead of making it easier for Montreal cyclists, they should ban them.
The same thing happens on the Plateau. I used to live on Duluth and you'd have all these cyclists running through the stop signs on Duluth instead of using the bike path on Rachel, a block north.
"Even for Slashdot, that was a very obscure reference!" - Anonymous Coward
That's rather unfortunate for you. But a cyclist is a pedestrian, and they ALWAYS have the right of way. Car drivers can go drive on an interstate (or whatever they call those in canada) if they don't like having to share the road.
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
Maybe the cyclists have to do this sort of thing to avoid getting killed by unfriendly motorists? You take every chance you have to get ahead of the traffic, or better yet out of its way entirely. You take your life in your hands if you don't.
There's been a bit of discussion about this in London since David Cameron, (the leader of the main opposition party), was caught cycling the wrong way down a one way street. Of course many people had a go at him for it, but cycling organisations defended him for the very reasons I have given. It's a jungle out there.
Nobody else has this sig.
Cyclists are counted as pedestrians in Canada?
At least where I'm from, (the UK), it's illegal to cycle on the pavement. By law, cyclists have to share the road with motorists and follow all the same rules. Of course this isn't necessarily a good law - see my post below.
Nobody else has this sig.
Up here in Ottawa, the Tory douchebags passed a bill to install surveillance cams in taxis, "to protect patrons and drivers" they say.
Knowing the average IQ of a taxi business owner/manager, I can guarantee you these will be misused in every way imaginable. For entertainment (check out the jugs on that one), for profit (thank you mr crooked cop), or even to blackmail people (who's that woman you were with - not your wife!).
Frankly, I think we should revert to times past, when people weren't so paranoid and we could all go on with our lives without the government staring up everyone's ass.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
We've got something similar here in Buffalo. Members can check out a bike from the web site and return it to any of the "hubs" around town, and then check it back in.
The biggest thing people always worry about is theft, but since the work is all done by volunteers and the bikes are all donations or cheapies from police auction, someone would have to steal a half-dozen bikes a year to eclipse their $15 membership fee.
--saint
Perhaps you have never ridden a bike in the winter, which is why you're such an expert on it? I've never had my wheels "suddenly just jerk sideways". If you have, maybe you're going too fast for the conditions.
Also, you actually have to dress as though it's a lot warmer when winter cycling, because the physical activity makes you very warm very fast. Yes, you need to cover your hands and feet, but there are plenty of ways to do that. I use winter boots, and they work just fine.
But thanks for the FUD.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Have you ever touched a door handle? Then the Big Brother knows where you are, and, yes, he's watching you---if he needed a camera to know what you are doing, he wouldn't be the Big Brother.
I was loving this until I saw the September launch date. WTF? Here, folks, have some bikes for 45 days. Then we'll see you in six months when the snow melts.
Nice to see this for next year, though. Traffic is awful.
They tend to be somewhat better educated than the rest of the public if only because they get bored and begin looking for stimulation.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
...that this kidn of system relies on the goodwill of its users. No matter how complicated you make the system, someone's bound to mess with it some time.
Here at Barcelona the "bicing" system is quite succesful, but we have a little problem: our city is lower at the seafront and higher when you go away from the sea. Consequence: it's very difficult to find a bike in the "high" districts, because people uses them to go "downwards" and ther returns using the underground or the bus, The bikes end in the "lower" part of the city! There is a service to "balance" and redistribute the bicicles all around the city, but it's unefficient, understaffed and slow. Any town which is going to implement a similar system should take into account this aparently stupid problem!
Indeed, it is the same here in Canada. You're not supposed to ride on the sidewalk if your wheels are over a certain size (i.e. kids are still allowed to ride on the sidewalk) and you're supposed to signal and obey all traffic laws.
Not that I've ever seen a bicyclist get a ticket.
The details are trivial and useless; The reasons, as always, purely human ones.
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.
They're replacing bus tickets with chip cards.So you'll have to walk.
You can't take the sky from me...
If you're in public without your tin-foil hat, then you're visible. You're also visible with the tin-foil hat, but you get lumped into the category "suspicious tin-foil hat wearer" until they've got their automatic tin-foil-crease-fingerprinting system sorted out. Trials start in August.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
If you listen closely, you can hear the joke going over your head.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
It's the ease of surveillance cams and facial recognition that bothers me.
You are welcome on my lawn.
...I was more of a fan of Josh Kinberg's Bikes Against Bush, though the prototype was confiscated by the police (and its creator jailed for a few days).
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
"Thighs, mostly, and momentum, dumbass. I, too, have mobility issues (compartment syndrome, post necrotic right leg, no extensors on right leg, etc)."
So what you're saying is if you were a horse, you'd be put down. Too bad you're not a horse then...
"and walking several miles used to result in a squishy sound from a right sneaker full of blood"
You're lying for effect and it's as disgusting as your crippled body.
"What do you know, eh?"
How to walk normally. Eat it.
"Live and learn, or, continue to live and take up space"
Funny coming from your useless crippled ass. Maybe you should have figured out how to walk without causing a "SNEAKER FULL OF BLOOD".
"Clueless toad."
At least you signed your post.