iFood's bike-share perk for riders backfired into a bike shortage

Brazil's largest food-delivery app, whose gig delivery riders can pay a weekly fee to access a partner bike-share network instead of buying or maintaining their own bikes.

iFood bet subsidizing access to a third-party bike-share network, with shorter routes for subscribers, would raise rider earnings without owning any bikes.

iFood launched iFood Pedal in October 2020, letting delivery riders pay up to 32 reais (about $6.66) a week for two four-hour bike-share sessions a day on Tembici's network across six major Brazilian cities (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Porto Alegre, Brasília and Recife), in exchange for shorter, more centralized — and more lucrative — delivery routes.

Riders signed up in large numbers because iFood pays by delivery, not distance, so Pedal's optimized routes let them earn more in less time; some riders also cited lower theft and maintenance risk than owning a bike. Demand quickly outstripped Tembici's supply, especially e-bikes — iFood's own October 2022 report acknowledged only 2,500 e-bikes were available for 18,000 enrolled riders. The shortage produced recurring tension at docking stations, including reported shoving matches and, according to riders, physical violence and arrests. Tembici tripled its weekly subscription price in October 2022 without fixing what riders described as poor bike maintenance, and some riders began gaming the system — hiring and parking a bike to appear compliant while actually delivering on their own bike or motorbike.

As of the July 2023 reporting, the underlying bike shortage remained unresolved: the perk had measurably boosted individual rider earnings, but it had also turned bike access into a recurring source of conflict — including reported violence — among the same gig workers it was designed to help, with no fix announced by iFood or Tembici.

Paying by delivery rather than distance meant Pedal's better routes translated directly into higher rider earnings, driving fast, high sign-up numbers.

iFood scaled the perk to more riders without expanding Tembici's bike supply at the same pace, especially for the more popular e-bikes.

A shared, capacity-limited resource (bikes at docking stations) turned a per-rider benefit into a competition between riders for the same physical bikes at rush hour.

Tembici's price increase addressed its own economics but did not add bikes or improve maintenance, so it didn't relieve the shortage riders were fighting over.

Subsidizing access to a shared, finite resource without controlling its supply can convert a retention perk into a zero-sum competition among the very workers it's meant to reward.

As of 2023-07-13, iFood Pedal was still running across its six-city footprint with 18,000 enrolled riders, and the bike shortage — along with the rider conflict it produced — remained an acknowledged but unresolved problem.