Many of the bike share operators whose systems I’ve mapped have accounts on Twitter – but do they use them to reply to customers, notify of system changes, or just tweet promotional measures? Have they built up an appropriately large set of followers? Do they tweet often? An active Twitter account is good customer service, one that replies to queries is great customer service! (N.B. Google has translated the Velib conversation above from French.)
There are 24 operators, for which I able to find a relevant Twitter account. The following table shows how they use it. This does of course leave several hundred other operators (many very small) for whom I could not find an account.
| City | System Name | Size (Bikes) | Twitter Account | Foll-owers | Repl-ies | Bad News | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mexico City | Ecobici | 1100 | @ecobici | 21475 | Yes | Yes | ***** |
| Miami Beach | DecoBike | 540 | @DecoBike | 10321^ | Yes | No | **** |
| London | Barclays Cycle Hire | 6300 | @BarclaysCycle | 6673 | No | Yes | *** |
| Washington DC/Arlington | Capital Bikeshare | 1400 | @bikeshare | 5374 | Yes | Yes | ***** |
| Denver | B-Cycle | 400 | @Denver_Bcycle | 4652 | No | Yes | *** |
| Minneapolis | Nice Ride | 1230 | @niceridemn | 4100 | Yes | Yes | ***** |
| Paris | Velib | 15700 | @Velib_Paris | 3094 | Yes | Yes | **** |
| Boston | Hubway | 700 | @hubway | 3741 | Yes | Yes | ***** |
| Montreal | BIXI | 4300 | @BIXImontreal | 3214 | Yes | Yes | **** |
| Toronto | BIXI | 820 | @BIXItoronto | 2801 | Yes | Yes | **** |
| Barcelona | Bicing | 3800 | @bicing | 2358 | Yes | Yes | **** |
| Boulder | B-Cycle | 120 | @Boulder_Bcycle | 1541 | Yes | Yes | ***** |
| Lille | V’Lille | 1550 | @transpole_actu | 1322^^ | Yes | Yes | *** |
| Bordeaux | VCub | 1300 | @tbc | 1118^^ | No | No | * |
| Melbourne | Melbourne Bike Share | 550 | @MelbBikeShare | 1095 | No | No | *** |
| Chattanooga | Bike Chattanooga | 230 | @BikeChattanooga | 672 | Yes | No | **** |
| Kansas City | B-Cycle | 80 | @BikeShareKC | 608 | No | Yes | **** |
| Broward County | B-Cycle | 150 | @browardbcycle | 498 | Yes | No | **** |
| Rennes | Le Velo Star | 630 | @levelostar | 384 | Yes | Yes | *** |
| San Antonio | B-Cycle | 200 | @SA_Bcycle | 323 | No | Yes | **** |
| Madison | B-Cycle | 220 | @Madison_Bcycle | 319 | No | Yes | **** |
| Tel-Aviv | Tel-o-fun | 860 | @tel_o_fun | 226 | Yes | Yes | *** |
| Brussels | Villo | 3100 | @Villo_brussels | 152 | No | Yes | ** |
| Ottawa | Capitale | 230 | @capitalbixi | 145 | Yes | Yes | *** |
^ = Account also handles smaller bike share systems in other cities.
^^ = Account also handles other public transport in the city.
Operators get a star for being on Twitter, another for having more followers than bikes on the street, another for replying directly to at least some user queries on Twitter, another for tweeting and least some system issues and other “bad news”, and another for having made at least a couple of tweets in the last 48 hours.
Large (500+ bike) systems with no active official Twitter account that appear on bikes.oobrien.com: Brisbane, Luxembourg City, Lyon, Milan, Nice, Saragossa, Valencia and Vienna. Not including Chinese or South Korea systems as Twitter appears to not be widely adopted in these countries, at least in terms of official transport accounts. Metrics were measured on 21 August 2012.
4 replies on “Bike Share Operators and Social Media – User Engagement with Twitter”
It would be most helpful if you could track metrics, including tweets for the new Charlotte North Carolina bike share which was launched in early August by B-Cycle.
Thanks much,
martin zimmerman, Charlotte NC
Concur that @boulder_bcycle ‘s Twitter presence is top notch. Frequent and informative without. becoming “too much”
As is their Customer Service. I’ve had two minor billing issues in past year (station not recognizing a check in) and they have resolved both within on business day.
Not sure how you count “replies” and “bad news”, but Vélib does not communicate at all on bad news (like the mobile app being broken for a few months now), and does not reply either to complaining users (lack of space / bikes, or people overcharged, for example)
Hi Mathieu – I’ve clarified my description so that a “Yes” means they reply to/report on at least some issues – but yes very well may not be replying to all users. See the pic at the top for a good Vélib conversation though.