Hubway stations are situated in a major city with busy intersections and crazy drivers. Biking without a helmet is unsafe, but carrying your own helmet around is inconvenient so many Hubway riders opt to abandon the helmet anyway.
At the same times every day, certain stations have no available docks and others have no available bikes. For example, the Beacon Street station is empty by 9am on weekdays, and the MIT station is full by around the same time. At the end of the day, the MIT station empties out by 5pm and the Beacon Street station fills up.
Non-Hubway members must pay with their credit card at the kiosk attached to every station, while Hubway members can check bikes out with an app or a key. The kiosk takes a long time to use, and is oftentimes broken, preventing a decent percentage of Hubway's user base from being able to take out a bike.
Not all Hubway stations distribute keys, and the keys are pretty easy to lose since they are so small. They are designed to fit on a key ring, but most Hubway users don't carry around car keys. Users who don't live near a station that distributes keys must either trek to a station that does distribute keys or wait for one to arrive in the mail if they lose theirs.
Helmet stations! All Hubway stations should be equipped with helmet distribution kiosks so that users can check out and return helmets with their bikes.
Hubway should have more staff on call or develop an algorithm to predict which stations need to be replenished and when. I have seen stations being replenished at times when it wasn't entirely necessary, and stations go untouched at times when they desperately need to be filled or emptied. Maximizing the efficiency of this process would increase the accessibility to users at all times of the day.
Allowing users to buy short passes through the app would increase efficiency and could eliminate the need for the inconvenient kiosks entirely.
Add a key distributor to every station. If a helmet station is already being installed, then adding a key distributor should be a minor addition as well.