That doesn’t sound like a lot of money. But so Directory shows, some bike angels generate a large number of points in a short period of time. The person with the highest rating at the time of writing these lines, with the username “AI180,” collected 4,514 points in the first four days of October. Equivalent: 767 fine francs.
Use the system
How is that possible? According to the New York Times, the actors are smart and focused. In order to move as many rental bikes as possible in the shortest possible time, they choose stations that are close to each other.
Since some of the “angels” also work together, they can empty one station and fill another with “Citi Bikes” within fifteen minutes. Every 15 minutes, the bike sharing system’s algorithm resets the points – and the game starts over. In the opposite direction.
“Citi Bike” users are pissed off
What brings money to one person worries others. This is what a user types on the platform Reddit: “Seeing these guys in action is incredibly frustrating as a long time member of the bike angel community. Membership of such people should be revoked. I saw a team of four guys cleaning bikes from one station and waiting for the 15 minute window to reset the values and then move all the bikes back to the other station. They repeated this for hours. They were dripping with sweat; it was obvious that they had been doing their job for hours, pushing the bikes back and forth between the two stations.
In more than 120 responses to the entry, several people report that they have been prevented from renting a bike by the use of the “Velo Angels”. Others, however, defend it and see no harm in taking advantage of the system. Ultimately, this practice is not specifically prohibited by “Citi Bike”.
2024-10-04 07:52:25
#York #money #renting #bikes
