Here at Donkey Republic we aim to adjust our bike-share system to be simple, efficient and convenient. After months of user and feature testing, looking into rental behaviour statistics, we found that deciding the rental duration prior to the rental and paying upfront can create confusion.
We saw that a big chunk (60-70%) of rentals were ended before the booked rental period would have expired. This mainly affected rentals longer than 12 hours, proving it is hard to plan for anything longer than that.
Just in the last 30 days, Donkey Bikes were booked for about 100K more hours than what they were actually used for and about 20% of these bookings would have fallen into a cheaper price range. On the other hand, about 10% of rentals were extended in the last 30 days.
We looked at these numbers, spent a lot of time understanding our riders’ behaviour and designing a pricing that is more fair. So this year we are moving to a whole new system that’s going to make your bike-life easier and more flexible.
Welcome to: Just Ride
What is Just Ride?
As simple as it sounds, you book your Donkey Bike first and only pay for the time you used it for, after you finished your rental. You will no longer have to decide upfront how long you need to rent a Donkey Bike for or worry about extensions. From 2019, Donkey Bike rentals will be charged after and according to your rental time. When you get on a bike you will always have an overview of the time and money you’ve spent on two wheels.
More biking for less
Our user research showed, that long rentals are still very popular, we kept the concept so it will still be worth keeping the bike for longer, if you need to rent a Donkey Bike for several days for example. You won’t need to spend time calculating, as you will be only paying for as much as you keep the bike for, and you can end your rental when you don’t need the bike anymore.
How it works
Regarding the rental process, everything remains the same, except for when you will pay for your ride. Choose a pick-up location and the number of bikes that you want to book, add your details and off you go – ready to saddle up! Once your rental is active, find your bike and then use the Donkey Republic app to unlock it. You can also switch to another Donkey Bike if you need to. During your rental you will always see the time and money you spent cycling, on the top of your app screen.
At the end of your rental
When you are done cycling, find an available drop-off location for your Donkey Bike(s), make sure you lock them and end your rental there. You will need to tap ‘End rental’ in the app, if you have multiple bikes in a booking, you will need to end the rental for each of them.
What’s new in Just Ride
- New time intervals for occasional needs: 15 mins, 1 hour, 4 hours
- Notifications and text messages – mainly to save you from paying for a service you don’t use
- We flipped the payment around and charge for rentals at the end
- New designs, a bit more orange, more smooth, more functional
- Extended Support menu with troubleshooting & FAQ
- Time and money spent on your current rental is shown in a bar on top of your app screen
- Detailed billing at the end of your rentals
Memberships – more Donkey for less
If you want regular access to Donkey Bikes, we’ve got you covered. For a fixed monthly fee, you can get on any Donkey Bike, in any city where we have bikes. Take as many rentals as you need, free for 12 hours per rental, and charged according to our Just Ride prices afterward. Check if your city has a Donkey Bike Membership.
With a Donkey Bike Membership, you can
- Get easy access to bikes in all our cities
- Rent for free, up to 12 hours at a time
- Rent 1 bike at a time
- Cancel anytime – no binding
- Upon canceling, keep your membership until the end of the current billing period
- Let go of your worries about theft or damage, insurance is included
We hope you will appreciate this update, because we do it for you. Not simply to save you money but also to make your Donkey Bike rentals more simple and hassle-free.
For a more in depth overview of Donkey Republic’s pricing see our guide here: https://www.donkey.bike/blog-how-much-does-it-cost-to-rent-a-donkey-republic-bike/
