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EQUIPMENT AUDIT-2022-ValleyBike2022 Bewegen Pioneer Valley Audit Report Tom Annese, Northampton Planning & Sustainability On March 23 and 24, 2022, Tom Annese performed a ValleyBike bicycle audit of the roughly 750 bikes purchased in phases 1, 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3 from April 2018-2021. Yanik Hardy, Customer Relations Manager at Bewegen, helped orient me at the Bewegen warehouse in Florence and helped me locate bicycle stations throughout the Pioneer Valley and answered any questions I had about the Bewegen system and/or when there were missing or extra bicycles at stations. Bewegen Warehouse At the Bewegen headquarters, there were roughly 300 bicycles in the warehouse. The Bewegen team organizes them into four groups: A, B, C, and Ready. The A group can generally be repaired in less than an hour. These repairs are done outside in the field when possible. The B group are bikes that require more extensive repairs–generally 1-4 hours. The C group requires a day-long complete overhaul that can take up to eight hours. Eight of the C bikes were vandalized or damaged to such an extent that they were stripped for usable parts to repair other bikes. These bikes are listed in the Bewegen’s bicycle spreadsheet. I counted roughly 85 C bikes and took a 20% sample and noted that they were all on the Bewegen spreadsheet. I took smaller samples of the other bikes and noted that they were all on the Bewegen spreadsheet. It’s important to note that on April 1st, Bewegen switches from winter to summer season. Many of the bicycles at the station will soon be moved to stations outside for community use. Station Bike Audit I audited 32 of the 59 winter stations in the Pioneer Valley, selected by me at random. There are 65 total stations in summer. The cities chosen were Springfield, Holyoke, Amherst, and Northampton. The initial station in each city or town was chosen at random. Other stations were chosen at random as well but with some attention given to the most efficient route throughout each City. In total I audited 240 bicycles at 32 different stations. In the table below, the number in parenthesis is the total number of bicycles audited per city. Below the city are the stations visited. Bike Stations Audited + Total Bikes Audited Per City Springfield (52)Holyoke (38)Amherst (83)Northampton (67) Basketball HofF El Corazon University Drive NHS Baystate Health South Holyoke Umass Southwest King St. (Starbucks) Kenefick Park Springdale Park Haigis Mall North King St (Big Y) Springfield Police Ely Court Knowlton YMCA Mercy Medical Depot Square Umass ILC Cooley Dick Livewell Peasant Park Sylvan Smith College Court Square Baystate Health North Pleasant St.Forbes Downtown Kendrick Park Village Hill Pulaski Park During the audit, I wrote down the bicycle numbers of each bicycle. Each bicycle has two identical number stickers, one on the interior neck of the frame and one below the seat post. Occasionally a sticker was missing from the neck but it was easy to simply look under the seat for the other sticker. After I wrote down all the bike numbers, I would return to confer with Bewegen internal website. Roughly half of the time we did this in reverse order–I would write the bicycle numbers directly from Yanik’s computer and then check to confirm that all the bikes Bewegen claimed were at the station. On five occasions, I noted discrepancies between the Bewegen’s data and auditing in the field. Either a bicycle that was supposed to be at a station was not there or there was an extra bicycle at the station that was not listed on Bewegen’s software. For example, at the El Corazon station in Holyoke, bicycle #1006 was on the internal website as being at that station. It was not. On the website, Yanik clicked on the bike, and it then showed that the bike was at the Peasant’s Park station. We later confirmed that the bike was indeed at Peasant’s Park station. Also at El Corazon, I found a bicycle that was not listed on the website as at the station. It was “an extra” bicycle that was not supposed to be there. After further investigation, Yanik discovered that the bike had a completely dead battery and was not connected to the network. He relayed that information to warehouse staff so they could pick up the bike when they were next in Holyoke. In another instance, at the Umass ILC station, I located one bike in a dock (#01089) that was not listed on Bewegen’s internal software as being at the ILC station. The software said the bike was at the warehouse but it was at the ILC station. At the North Pleasant St Station in Amherst, bicycle #3481 was an “extra bicycle” that was not listed for that station. The website said the bike was at Kendrick Park but it was at the North Pleasant St. Station. Of the five discrepancies, none produced a missing bicycle. They were due to lag time in the Bewegen website or to mechanical issues with the bicycle itself. Conclusion During the audit, I found approximately 300 bicycles at the Bewegen warehouse, and hand counted 240 individual bicycles in Springfield, Holyoke, Amherst, and Northampton. While I did find few discrepancies, most if not all of these could be attributed to quirks or lags in the Bewegen software or battery issues with an individual bicycle. I found no evidence of missing bicycles. I did see evidence that heavily damaged bicycles were being used to repair other damaged bicycles.