BIXI BIXI BIXI
May 11th, 2010
I finally got a BIXI key last week, and have been biking to and from work. Subsequently, I noticed that Gameloft is uphill from my apartment. So it’s a good workout, and when I change t-shirts in the bathroom when I arrive I can pretend I’m Superman in a telephone booth. So really, it’s fun from start to finish.
For those from out of town, or the exceptionally oblivious, BIXI is Montréal’s public bicycle sharing system. Users buy a month or year-long pass, or can pay-as-they-go with a credit card. It was launched last year in Montréal, and has since spread to Ottawa and London, among other places. Like many progressive eco-friendly community socialist projects, Europe’s been doing it for a while.
Anyhow, BIXI’S front page is currently showing off the “2009 Top 25 BIXIclists”, the twenty-five folks who used the service most. A leaderboard of sorts. So what other game design concepts can be used to improve BIXI? Basically, what incentives can we create to encourage users to use the service more, and to make it more efficient?
Already users have access to “My BIXI Space”, a page where they can check out their bike-riding stats and history. The simplest stat shown is the user’s total distance traveled, in kilometers. Why don’t we turn this into a currency, a point system? With each km traveled, users earn points that can later be redeemed for prizes, like water bottles, safety gear, or a free subscription for friends and family.
Or just for bragging rights; let’s make a leaderboard. Who has biked the most this year/week/today? Who took the longest trip? Who’s fastest? Or, on a personal and less competitive way, personal high score tables could encourage solo “players” to beat their own personal week-to-week distance.
The site also keeps track of every trip you’ve taken, station-to-station. Google Maps/Earth keeps track of altitude, so why not keep show who has climbed the most hills today, or who is the downhill champion? That leads us naturally to our old friend, the Achievement System! You biked 100km, ding! You’ve climbed a total of 25km, ding!
So that encourages players to use the service, so let’s now find a way to encourage users to make it run more smoothly.
A friend of mine, who is a much bigger sustainatarian than I, was telling me that some people are unimpressed with the service, due in part to the fleet of pickup trucks required to shuttle bikes from overcrowded stations to empty ones. We could give players bonus points for docking a bike at an otherwise empty station, reducing the need for these trucks. We’ll place “bounties” on the website, encouraging users to bring bikes from overcrowded stations to empty ones. Personally that wouldn’t encourage me to bike to Peel and walk home for a few points, but it couldn’t hurt.
I’ll be honest. Part of me feels kind of weird doing this. Like I’m helping Jesse Schell’s terrifying vision of the future become a reality. This whole blog post is about manipulation. But is it wrong? I’m hoping to inject a little more fun into a service I already use, and one that helps me stay in shape and pollute less. If this ever turns into a spammy Facebook game I will throw myself under a solar-powered bus.
