The most common bike share bikes in the Boston area are BlueBikes, which use drum brakes. As a result, braking these heavy bikes takes a considerable amount of squeezing force. In my own experience, this limits the uses of the bike, as one cannot rely on the brakes to stop quickly at high speeds.
Do they have to use drum brakes? What would the alternatives be? Can braking performance on this brake type be improved?
Mostly it is about maintenance costs and reliability. Drum brakes require the least maintenance of all brake types and have lower initial cost than disk brakes. They are also not affected by damage to rims or discs and work in rain just as well as in dry weather (i.e. not effective, but no sudden loss of braking either).
The low braking power is more a benefit than problem for bike share bikes. These bikes are not expected to be ridden fast enough to need powerful brakes, but an inexperienced rider can throw themselves over the bars with the front brake and poor brake reduces this risk.
