Gaming a bike sharing algorithm

 Jacob Leshno points out this NYT story. He writes "The gist of it is that Citi bike pays to deliver bikes to stations with shortages, and someone figured they could make money by creating artificial shortages."

The Hustlers Who Make $6,000 a Month by Gaming Citi Bikes. The bike-sharing program rewards users who help redistribute bikes around New York City. A few riders have figured out how to turn that into profit.  By Christopher Maag (Christopher Maag spent several days in Midtown Manhattan running behind Bike Angels.)

"By monitoring a map of stations on Lyft’s app, they noticed that the algorithm awards points on a sliding scale based on need. Removing a bike from a completely full station: up to four points. Docking at an empty station? That’s worth up to another four. People who move at least four bikes in a 24-hour period get all their points multiplied by a factor of three.

"Lyft pays 20 cents per point. Each ride generates a maximum of 24 points. In perfect conditions, a person on a 3X streak who relocates a bike from a full dock to a completely empty one can earn as much as $4.80 for a single ride.

...

"At 10 a.m. on a Tuesday last month, seven Bike Angels descended on the docking station at Broadway and 53rd Street, across from the Ed Sullivan Theater. Each rider used his own special blue key — a reward from Citi Bike — to unlock a bike. He rode it one block east, to Seventh Avenue. He docked, ran back to Broadway, unlocked another bike and made the trip again.

"By 10:14, the crew had created an algorithmically perfect situation: One station 100 percent full, a short block from another station 100 percent empty. The timing was crucial, because every 15 minutes, Lyft’s algorithm resets, assigning new point values to every bike move.

"The clock struck 10:15. The algorithm, mistaking this manufactured setup for a true emergency, offered the maximum incentive: $4.80 for every bike returned to the Ed Sullivan Theater. The men switched direction, running east and pedaling west."

Bike matching in NYC

Program Matches Bicycles To Essential Workers Who Need Them In New York 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: If you're looking for ways that you can help out these days, there's plenty of need. Food pantries need non-perishable food. Hospitals need masks. And lots of people, it turns out, need wheels.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Yeah. That is the idea behind a new program from the New York City-based advocacy group Transportation Alternatives.

"SHAPIRO: Danny Harris says they've matched 42 people with bikes so far, and many more are in the works.
...
"SHAPIRO: And Salazar says with car traffic way down, biking in New York City these days is actually quite nice."

HT: Ellen Kominers

Bikes and guns while sheltering in place in Santa Clara County (bikes are essential, guns are not)

From the Santa Clara County Department of Public Health, a new shelter in place order that defines, among other things, "essential businesses" which are those that can keep operating from their traditional premises (as opposed to only making home deliveries):


Coronavirus Frequently Asked Questions
MARCH 31, 2020 SUPERSEDING SHELTER-IN-PLACE ORDER 

"This new Order requires that most people continue sheltering in their place of residence until May 3, 2020.  This new Order replaces the prior Shelter-in-Place Order, which was set to expire on April 7, 2020.  It also adds to the list of restrictions to slow the spread of the COVID-19 disease.

"You are still allowed to participate in “essential activities” or to work for an “essential business” if it is not possible for you to work from home."

There follows a long list of essential businesses, and a long set of Q's and A's to guide the perplexed.

Among the Essential businesses:

"Bicycle repair and supply shops"
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and there's this Q&A:

"Can gun shops selling firearms and ammunition continue to keep their storefronts open? 

"No.  Gun shops are not essential businesses under the Order.  The Order allows delivery of inventory directly to customers at their residences in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, but gun shops may not make sales from their storefronts. "
*********
I imagine the situation is different in Texas.

Expect a case to reach the Supreme Court in a few years...

Rules of the road for cars and bikes

In many places where cars and bikes share a road, they customarily (if not legally) follow different rules. In England, a trial program will allow bikes to travel the wrong way down some one-way streets: Cyclists will be given green light to ignore one-way signs.

"Cyclists will be permitted to ride the wrong way along one-way streets under a change intended to encourage more people to give up their cars or use them less.
The Government will announce today that cyclists will be permitted to ignore no-entry signs: a practice already followed by many, including David Cameron, the Conservative leader.
The Department for Transport is authorising a trial in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, Mr Cameron’s home authority in West London, in which a small plate saying “Except cyclists” will be attached to poles carrying no-entry signs.
If the trial is successful, the department intends to extend the policy to the rest of Britain and permit thousands of one-way streets to become two-way for bikes. It believes that long diversions around one-way systems are a significant deterrent to new cyclists, who might be less confident about breaking the rules."

On this side of the pond, Brookline MA is trying something similar, although not on the roads that I ride to work: Right way or wrong way? Brookline tries out new bike lanes

Lynne Kiesling at KP has a nice post on whether cars and bikes should obey the same rules of the road: Roads and paths as common-pool resources, and the problem of governing them

The rules of the road are a relatively recent invention: 2009 marks the 100th anniversary of Boston’s first traffic regulations, as issued by the Board of Street Commissioners. Peter DeMarco of the Boston Globe reports A century ago, driving laws tamed Boston’s wild streets.

"Back then there were no street signs, no stop signs, no traffic lights, no double center lines, no traveling lanes, and no yield signs. Automobiles had to battle horse-drawn carriages and wagons, bicyclists, trolleys, and pedestrians for space on the road. And while we joke today about how infrequently we obey traffic laws in Massachusetts, a century ago, there were scarcely any laws to obey."

Of the new laws adopted in 1909 he says:"A number of the laws are still very much in use today. Boston got its first one-way streets, adopted a new rule requiring drivers to “signal if about to turn,’’ and began requiring drivers to pass on the left - all in 1909. Parking within 10 feet of a curb was prohibited, double parking was outlawed (well, at least on paper), and police, fire, and other emergency vehicles (including postal carriers and doctors) were given the right of way.
But the rules also show how little our state’s first motorists actually knew about driving, and how Boston streets were really a free-for-all. Drivers had to be told not to stop in the middle of the street, not to park on sidewalks, and not to drive in reverse. The regulations include basic diagrams, reprinted in newspapers for all to study, explaining how to properly make a right turn, a left turn, and a U-turn - revolutionary stuff in 1909, when license exams consisted of a paltry 12 questions."
...
"Most cars were rudimentary, lacking not only turn signals, brake lights, and treaded tires, but also speedometers, windshields (thus the need for driving goggles), roofs, shock absorbers, power steering, and heat (necessitating leather driving coats and gloves). Steam-engine cars could explode, while hand-crank starter rods could spin back and break your arm. To apply brakes, you pulled hard on a lever. Seat belts, alas, didn’t exist."

Update: a column in the London Times suggests that bike riders will have to become more law abiding if London is to become more like Amsterdam, with high volume bike traffic: Time’s up, bike bandits