A Dutch company called Bike Dispenser has created a low-cost system for city-wide bike rentals. From Treehugger:
It’s designed to allow one-way journeys, with drop off and pick-up points in various locations around a city. Each bike would be fitted with an RFID chip to track and log journeys, and customers would pay a small charge to rent a bike. It was designed by Dutch agency, Springtime, who have worked for Nike, Coca Cola and Toyota. Several cities have implemented bike rental or free-bike schemes, and this system, excluding initial investment, could help to keep costs down. Of course, there are problems with it, such as the fact that you are relying on the previous renter to return the bike in good condition. Presumably there is no way for the machine to know if the bike it is handing out has a flat tire or other problem.
8 comments
Ever notice how places with no space like Amsterdam always have space for cool stuff. And places with lots of space like Toronto don’t. When you have less space maybe you consider it and handle it with more care. This device is ingenious and brings a smile to my face.
This already exists in Lyon, Paris and Brussels.
Is it really cool? I think the Bikeshare program is still much better, and it works too!
There’s also something called political will that’s a needed part of such a program. While not as sleek nor as perhaps corporate as some of the Euro programs, the CBN’s YellowBike program did fill enough of a niche, only to falter for c. $80,000. Meanwhile, what happens to the interest on the $50,000,000 or so that’s set aside for the Front St. Extension. Or when moviemakers occupy bike lanes as the Hulk has been doing at UfoT on Hoskin, why does the income from that jeopardizing of cyclists go into a general revenue?
I love BikeShare as well and wish we still had it. I think the Bike Dispenser system was created so that there no staffing would be required (probably the only downside to Bike Share).
we saw something like this in Barcelona but it didn’t have all the designer-crap all over it and it wasn’t a ‘dispenser’- the bikes were all locked via a magnetic contact system on a long rail that could hold about 25 bikes. You put your prepaid client card in the thing and it unlocked the next bike for you. Easy peasy. No need for all the glossy ‘street furniture’.
Hi Matt,
I disagree, Matt. Progressive employment is not a ‘downside’. Staff costs did not spell the ‘end’
of BikeShare.
When I said downside I could’ve been more specific and said inconvenience. yes, employment is good, but you couldn’t check a bike out of a Bike Share partner if that business was closed. So, yeah, there was a downside (and I didn’t infer that staff costs were the end of BikeShare).