Bikes · Piloting in Kreis 4
Rent your neighbor's bike. Bring it back.
A neighbor's bike, by the hour. The lock opens from your phone for the hours you booked. The rental fee and a refundable deposit are held while you ride and released when the bike is back at its spot. Owners keep 92 percent of the fee and see every return within a day.
A sharing economy works when the bike, the lock, and the renter are all on the same street. So we are starting in one neighborhood of Zürich, with one asset class, with one hundred owners. The bikes are not ours and never will be. A hundred neighbors already own a hundred good bikes, bought once, parked most of the day, ridden for a few of its hours.
Each bike carries a small Bluetooth lock. When your window starts, your phone carries a key the lock accepts, and only for that window. When you lock the bike at its spot, the lock signs the return and the clock on the deposit starts. The owner has a day to look at the bike. If nothing is flagged, the deposit comes back on its own.
Owners set the price, usually between four and six francs an hour, and a deposit within a cap tied to that price. A renter with no record posts the whole deposit. A renter with a good record posts a fraction of it. The record is yours; it does not belong to us.
What is held
Rental fee plus a refundable deposit.
Billed in whole hours. The deposit is set by the owner and shrinks with your record. It returns 24 hours after you lock the bike unless the owner flags damage; then the bike guild decides.
Four steps
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List
An owner posts the bike, a price per hour and the deposit. The smart lock is paired once.
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Reserve
You pick a window. Fee and deposit are held in one step.
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Ride
The lock opens from your phone. Lock the bike at its spot to end the rental.
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Settle
Deposit back after the owner's 24 hour window. Both sides rate.
When two neighbors disagree
The bike guild decides.
Most rentals close in step four. The few that do not go to the bike guild: a small group of people who know the thing, bonded, voting on the record. The renter has 72 hours to answer, the members vote within 96, and what is held moves as they decide. The platform never decides. How the guild works →
Questions
What if the lock does not open?
Try again, wake the lock, or tell the app the lock does not respond. A bike that never unlocked is a rental that never happened: everything is refunded and the owner is told the lock failed.
What if I am late?
Thirty minutes of grace after the window. After that each started hour costs the hourly price, taken from the deposit and never more than the deposit. No case, no discussion. A bike that never comes back is a different matter, and that one goes to the guild.
Who sets the deposit?
The owner, within a cap tied to the hourly price. Renters with a record post less: Bronze posts three quarters, Silver half, Gold a quarter.