JUMP, D.C.’s electric dockless bike-share, plans to increase inventory in November

Commuters in Washington, D.C., now have a faster, easier, less sweaty biking option thanks to a company launching electric bike-share.

JUMP DC launched in September 2017 along with other dockless companies that include Spin, Mobike, LimeBike, and the recently launched Ofo. While JUMP DC currently has the fewest bikes available in D.C., there are plans to expand the fleet to over 100 bikes by early November.

Each bike has eight gears and a motor limited to 20 mph. Each trip costs $2 for the first half hour and 7 cents for every minute after that. In comparison, the price for Spin, Mobike, Ofo, and LimeBike is $1 per every half hour. Capital Bikeshare costs $2 per half hour and $8 per 24 hours.

One issue that has emerged since the launch of dockless bike share is that users have been leaving dockless bikes in locations that don’t allow parked bikes. The National Park Service has already seized over a dozen dockless bikes, found in memorials, Metro stations, and parking lots.

In order to avoid this issue, JUMP bikes have an integrated lock designed to lock the bike to appropriate bike racks, as opposed to the other dockless bike-share companies where the bikes only disable the bike’s rear wheel. If a JUMP DC rider doesn’t park in an appropriate location, then the public can contact the company through the bike’s onboard computer or through the JUMP Mobility app, and a JUMP DC employee will respond within an hour, and the user who improperly locked the bike will be charged a $25 fee.

JUMP DC is a program owned and operated by Social Bicycles, a company that has launched over 35 bike-share systems world-wide, including California, New York, Poland, and Australia. JUMP DC is Social Bicycle’s first publicly available electric-assist system. Social Bicycle also claims that it is the world’s first dockless electric-assist bike share system.

For those interested in giving JUMP a try, use the promo code, JUMP4DC. This will allow users to get two free bonus rides per hour on top of the two and a half hours offered during signup.

• Electronic bikes JUMP into DC’s dockless bikeshare scene [Technical.ly]

• Hey, you can’t park there! Dockless bike-share bikes ending up in inappropriate places [The Washington Post]

• We tried all four of D.C.’s dockless bike-share systems. Here’s our review. [The Washington Post]