News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Balancing Bike-Share Stations Has Become a Scientific End... by xanderstrike on Friday August 29, 2014 @06:43PM (#8244845)
I think what he means by "negative cost" is that you actually pay people (in credit), to take the bike to the desired station.
Re:Balancing Bike-Share Stations Has Become a Scientific End... by eridius on Friday August 29, 2014 @06:47PM (#8244862)
Yes that's what I understood as well, although that's just one component of "dynamically price". And even that isn't really going to work. That's equivalent to just paying someone outright to rebalance bikes, except it's ad-hoc, only moves one bike at a time, and significantly complicates the process.
Re:Balancing Bike-Share Stations Has Become a Scientific End... by SilasX on Friday August 29, 2014 @08:37PM (#8245171)
I agree that making money through riding a bike from a low to high demand station would be an edge case, but I don't see how it adds significant complication. You just list what the price would be at different stations if they return the bike there, with some being refunds.
Re:Balancing Bike-Share Stations Has Become a Scientific End... by Scoundreller on Friday August 29, 2014 @08:02PM (#8245080)
Which is what they do already, except they pay employees/vehicles/fuel.

The providers have some philosophical problem with paying regular people to do the very same.

Once they overcome this, the system will work a whole lot better and more profitably.