To determine which Divvy stations need more bikes and which ones need more parking spots, officials with Chicago’s bike-sharing program examine historical and real-time data.
Divvy divides the day into specific time periods—morning, midday, evening and late evening—and studies usage at each time of day, Divvy spokesman Elliot Greenberger said. Then Divvy dispatches vans to stations to add or remove bikes based on station traffic patterns.
“At this point, there are some fairly predictable patterns for weekdays and weekends that we’ve organized our operations around, and we make adjustments to those on a regular basis as our ridership grows and changes,” Greenberger told RedEye.
If Divvy identifies a station that consistently has too many or too few bikes, officials look at how long the station has been full or empty. Then Divvy analyzes the gap between trips that start at that station and trips that end at that station during a given time of day.
This scenario occurs at night in the Loop as commuters head to their trains from work.
Loop stations in the evening have significantly more starting trips than ending trips, and commuter rail stations around Union and Ogilvie stations have significantly more ending trips than starting trips, Greenberger said.
Divvy identifies clusters of those stations and create routes that combine predominantly “start” stations with predominantly “end” stations in which a van picks up a load of bikes from one or more “end” stations—and drops them off at one or more “start” stations, Greenberger said.
The data also informs Divvy at which stations to place a valet to make sure riders have spots to dock at stations popular for drop-offs. Divvy implemented valet service this year at downtown hotspots during rush hour and lakefront spots during the weekends. Valets—Divvy staffers—stand at stations and remove bikes to make sure docks don’t get full.
If Divvy knows an event is coming up that will likely affect bike flow, such as Lollapalooza, the program will dispatch the vans and implement valet service to ensure there are enough bikes and parking spaces, Greenberger said.
![“Let the music do the talking,” sang Phish vocalist-guitarist Trey Anastasio at the outset of the band’s concert Saturday at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Normally, hearing that advice from a well-disciplined virtuoso who seemingly never tires of the stage and worships the groove would pass without a hint of potential irony. However, given the group was not even one minute into the third of its sold-out four-night stand at the $2.3 billion dome — expressly devised to push sensory boundaries to previously uncharted limits — one couldn’t help wonder how seriously Phish would take its own instruction. Turns out […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CTC-L-ENT-PHISH-04-e1713888536637.jpg?w=620 "“Let the music do the talking,” sang Phish vocalist-guitarist Trey Anastasio at the outset of the band’s concert Saturday at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Normally, hearing that advice from a well-disciplined virtuoso who seemingly never tires of the stage and worships the groove would pass without a hint of potential irony. However, given the group was not even one minute into the third of its sold-out four-night stand at the $2.3 billion dome — expressly devised to push sensory boundaries to previously uncharted limits — one couldn’t help wonder how seriously Phish would take its own instruction. Turns out […]")
