Abstract

The case discusses the challenges faced by Paris-based public bike sharing system, Vélib’, under its new operator, The Smovengo Group (Smovengo). As part of the deal, Smovengo had to provide 1,400 docking stations and 20,000 operational bicycles by March 2018 in return for revenues from Vélib’s ridership. While Smovengo aimed to make Vélib’ a successful bike sharing program, it faced several challenges from declining ridership to bikes being stolen, and users complaining about empty stations and lack of usable bikes due to technical failures, vandalism, and delays in repair and maintenance. To tackle the issue of repairing damaged bikes and putting them into operation, Smovengo was planning to increase its existing maintenance capacity to 850 bikes per day and to offer 19,000 bikes by the end of July 2019. Amidst several challenges, would Vélib’ be able to fill a crucial role in urban mobility at a time when solutions to traffic congestion and pollution were needed urgently?

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Study the operating model of the Vélib’ system.
• Examine the challenges with regard to theft and vandalism of Vélib’ bikes and decreasing ridership due to inoperable bikes.
• Explore strategies for making the Vélib’ public bike sharing system sustainable.

Keywords

Urban mobility; Transition challenges; Public bike sharing system; Bike rental; Logistics; Bike redistribution; Operating model; Sustainable green transportation; Traffic congestion; Pollution; Sustainability; Customer travel behaviour; Vandalism; Service recovery; Service failure