It's really just a parking problem. We don't want another cable company / taxis v2 and 'pick' a winner with horrible service. You mandate that these things need to be locked to something and most of the problem resolves itself.
Businesses that want it to be easier to shop where they are will install bike racks. The city will fund new bike racks with scooter permits. You could even allow scooter companies to install and pay for new bike racks themselves as they probably understand demand dynamics far better than random cities. If the scooter companies install the racks, you just have to say they can be used by everyone and are owned by the city.
We don't need heavy duty docking systems that are exclusionary to one docking company. A simple cheap metal bike rack that everyone can use will be plenty enough and more economically efficient.
You can also detect if the renter rider puts the scooter in the right area or if someone is screwing with the scooters after the fact with accelerometers. You could even detect if they are in a tipped over state or not.
You can also detect if... someone is screwing with the scooters after the fact with accelerometers
https://www.limebike.com/blog/new-tech-helping-lime-keep-bik...
Also by locking the devices the likelihood of them falling or being in the way is low.
If you can tell the renter did the action
by locking the devices the likelihood of them falling or being in the way is low
The biggest complaint with these scooters is they are in the middle of the right of the public right of way and laying down on the street in an inefficient manner.
If they are locked to something, they would be outside of the right of way since lock points tend to be on the edges of sidewalks. If you put the lock on the correct point on the scooter, it will be fairly difficult to knock them over, vs the light tap you need today.
Locking also reduces the instances of impulsive bad acts, since now you need some sort of specialized power machinery to remove the items. And barriers to impulsiveness is a big factor in reducing crime. Did you know for example crime tends to happen more at the bottom of a hill vs the top of a hill? Because people don't want to walk up hills because it's extra effort.
On top of that, nobody has been complaining about personal bike ownership, which today follows a model of being locked to things.
JUMP bikes in SF for example follows this model, has been around before the scooter boom. I haven't heard a single complaint about them other than positive complaints such as 'why aren't there more?', and 'why are they restricted to an area?' The scooters on the other hand have had a bunch of negative complaints.
If people can move past the dockless approach and realize it doesn't scale then we might get more efficient business models that could be defended without gobs of VC money.
[1] http://www.wri.org/blog/2018/01/chinese-cities-aim-rein-bike...
[2] https://news.sky.com/story/in-china-rental-bikes-have-become...
Anyway, cities could make parking rules and require the scooter companies to help with enforcement. E.g., to lock the scooter you have to park it properly and take a picture with the app. The city's parking enforcement gets access to the pictures and can fine people without even having to get off their chairs.
The real problem with scooters, from what I've heard, is that boomers hate them because they're new and because some people ride them on the sidewalks. But the dock solution does not help at all with that.
Refreshingly honest.
Fascinating idea, thanks for that analysis.
1) The city picks a winner. This could be done fairly by auctioning off a five year contract or it could be done via corruption. Either way the scooter companies should be taking the millions they've raised and greasing officials.
2) Establish a market for docks. There's an interesting opportunity here in that scooter "stations" don't need to be the sort of big official stations that have beeen deployed for bikes where each station holds 30+ bikes. You could imagine a lot of small business, stores, etc. offering to host small stations that hold 4-5 scooters on their own private property. The scooter companies would then either race to lease as many of these stations as possible or would be forced to pay each time a scooter of theirs gets docked at the station. The winner is the company that owns the most stations. That's a real moat and the stations become real assets.
3) The simplest solution is probably to just to give people scooters. Let people "lease" a scooter and trade in these "leased" scooters at any time 24/7. Trade ins need not be a big centralized, complicated thing; you could imagine something like a scooter delivery service. In <20 minutes an Uber shows up and drops off a new scooter and collects an old one. Don't charge people if the scooter is stolen or breaks but do charge people if their scooter is left on the sidewalk and gets seized by the city. Then it would be up to individuals to make sure their scooter doesn't get left on public property. Scooters are so small -- and only getting smaller and more portable -- that you could imagine that most people won't mind stashing them under their desk/in their office.
All three of these possibilities btw lead to a single winner. At the end of the day, like with most transportation plays, you're looking at powerful economies of scale where the big guys only get bigger. It's a market to invest in if you think you can pick the winner cuz that winner probably will take all.