Examining the proposed fare increase for Austin’s MetroBike service.

CapMetro’s proposed fare increase

Price Hike

CapMetro released a proposed fare increase for its MetroBike service which it acquired from Austin B-Cycle in 2020 for public comment.

Austin’s docked bikeshare system has been around for over 11 years and predates the dockless scooter spam that really started in 2018.

Me on a brand new electric B-Cycle. Circa December 2018

Comparison

I used the Uber, Bird, and Lime apps to compare what the cost would be to take three different trips of different lengths from my house. Uber can be subject to surge pricing but this did not appear to be the case when I observed the results.

As for Lime, Bird, and MetroBike I used the Google Maps suggested travel time by bicycle for calculating the cost of these rentals.

---

---

---

---

Takeaways:

• What really stands out to me how expensive all of these rental services are. Uber was the most expensive in all three scenarios, but Uber allows for up to 4 people. Renting 2 or more bikes/scooters was more expensive than an Uber ride pretty much every time.

• The other thing that surprised me is that all of these mircomobility services use trip duration rather than trip distance for calculating the cost. This incentivizes people to go faster than they probably otherwise should and take risky maneuvers to hopefully save a few bucks. Since 2021, 34 people were killed or seriously injured on e-scooters in crashes Austin.

• MetroBike doesn’t have a kiosk near where I live or near two of the destinations I picked, so it wasn’t a viable option for two of them anyway. Also, you need to find an available dock which may not be free where you are heading causing you to either wait for a dock to open up or bike somewhere else increasing your trip cost further. Of course, one needs to find a nearby Bird/Lime scooter (probably fallen over) in order to use those services too.

• The 129% increase to the “unlock” fee is quite significant on shorter rides. Trips 9 minutes or less will see their overall price increased by more than 50%.

• In 2024, the median ride time for MetroBike was just 8 minutes. This means, that the typical trip on MetroBike will cost 53.6% more after August 1st.

• The increased “unlock” fee makes MetroBike less competitive to other micrombility providers at trips less than 5 minutes. Bird and Lime are both cheaper for these rides whereas the current MetroBike is always the more affordable option. In 2024, trips 5 minutes or less accounted for 35% of MetroBike’s journeys

---

That’s all my thoughts. To summarize, I think MetroBike is still an okay option for longer distance trips, but this change makes MetroBike significantly more expensive for short distance trips which make up a majority of MetroBike’s trips.