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Biking During COVID-19
06/17/2020As an essential business that provides the community with a 24/7 transportation service, Biki has continued operating throughout the pandemic. However, like so many businesses, Biki has had to shift operating procedures to help fight the spread of COVID-19. Jono Mauri, General Manager at Secure Bike Share (Biki's financing and operating partner), shares how the Biki Crew has adapted in order to keep Biki riders and the community safe.
Secure Bike Share works with Bikeshare Hawaii to run the Biki program. Since launch, Secure has been responsible for all day to day operations including customer service, rebalancing, bike maintenance, and site installation.
How has the day-to-day operations of biki changed?
Even before COVID-19, we employed a full-time station cleaner to ensure Biki equipment was clean for riders. We have since enhanced this effort by shifting resources that normally designated to other parts of Biki's daily operations to instead aid our station cleaner in disinfecting bikes, kiosks, and stations. We have also continued to analyze the station usage of the Biki Stops located near hospitals and other health facilities to ensure our system is accessible for essential workers.
It is hard to forecast what the future holds with COVID-19. Even though restrictions are starting to ease for local businesses, we plan to maintain our new cleaning protocols to ensure the safety, accessibility and cleanliness of our system moving forward.
How are you protecting your staff?
We closed Biki HQ to the public beginning in March and allowed staff, such as call center agents, to work from home whenever possible. We have put in place social distancing protocols for both our office and warehouse staff members and our field crew is required to wear gloves and face coverings and disinfect the Biki vans before and after each shift.
Have you noticed any new trends or changes in ridership?
Understandably, we've noticed some changes in ridership trends due to COVID-19. Our downtown stations have seen a significant decrease in use as a result of the stay-at-home orders with more residents now working from home. Fewer workers downtown mean fewer daily Biki work commuters, which traditionally made up a large portion of our riders. While we're seeing fewer rides, we're also seeing longer rides. This is likely because more people are using Biki for exercise and recreation. Our highest ride day since pre-COVID19 was on June 21, during the most recent Open Street Sundays Event along Kalakaua. We're happy to see so many members come out for this community initiative and hope you'll join us at the next one.
We recently opened up a member survey and hope to learn more about COVID related ridership trends from our members. If you're an active Biki Member, we would greatly appreciate you taking a few minutes to give us feedback.
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