Bike sharing
Nextbike in Germany. Photo credit: Jokannes, via Wikimedia Commons
G Magazine’s new issue is out, and they’ve got a feature on car-share businesses in Australia. If you’ve ever thought about ditching your car but weren’t sure if you could do without it all the time, it’s well worth a look.
But lately I’ve been seeing mentions of bike-sharing businesses around the world. I think they’re a great idea and would work really well in our capital cities and even some of our big regional centres.
Similar to the car-sharing idea, a business has a lot of bikes available for members who join up. They have several collection/drop-off points all around a city, lots of them near public transport hubs. That way you can leave the bike somewhere near the end of your journey without having to return it back where you started.
The first programs had problems with theft and vandalism, because they relied on a trust system. The most successful bike-shares require you to be a member, and have a swipe-card or mobile-phone system to record who’s got which bike.
One of the reasons people don’t like to give up their cars is that a car makes you independently mobile. Unlike public transport, you’re not relying on someone else to provide the transport on a set timetable and route. I think bicycles are a great alternative to cars for short trips by yourself, giving that independence of movement that we’re so used to but without the pollution and congestion problems.
Wikipedia lists 34 cities around the world with a system like this in place already. Mexico City, Hangzhou in China, Bristol and Blackpool in the UK, plus a dozen more in Europe. Paris, London and New York are in on the act too.
Apparently someone tried to set up a bike-share in Melbourne but it didn’t take off at first, and they’re trying again this year with new people running the show. There’s rumours of one starting up in Brisbane as well. Wikipedia also lists Perth and the Gold Coast as candidates, but doesn’t have any more detail than that.
If you know anything about these, please leave a comment, I’d love to know more! I’m always interested in product-sharing services, and bikes are a great candidate for that.
8 Comments
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Hi Julie,
Any idea whether these schemes tried a method similar to Aldi supermarkets, where money is inserted into a shopping trolley before it can be removed from the rack, and cannot be retrieved until it is re-racked? I hear Aldi has one of the lowest instances of trolley vandalism.
Surely something like this would work for the bicycle scheme also?
Jackson
I think some of the French ones use a similar system to the trolleys. Others seem to have a swipe card, issued to members who use it to tag the bike on and off when they take/leave it. Generally, the free systems have a lot of vandalism and theft, and just about any system where they need a token/coin/whatever to take a bike runs better.
I think all of us greenies need to get good at social psychology if we want systems like this to work
Canberra would be ideal for it! The city is set up for bike riding… we just need to be able to attach our kid bike trailer to them!
I’d love to see it get started in Canberra, maybe we could get a few pollies to try it out
Yep, Brisbane has committed to this idea and the council hopes it will be up and running in the second half of the year. There will be 150 ‘parking stations’ for the bikes across the extended city area – covering the CBD, universities, major public facilities such as the Gabba, and recreational areas. Further details here:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/bike-hire-scheme-hits-first-gear-20100201-n8qn.html
Wow, 150 stations sounds great! Thanks for sharing with us, Reyna
Hobart is doing this soon! The concept is that the bikes are for people wanting to get around to local art galleries, but if successful, I can see much wider applications. This is an article, (sorry I couldn’t find one on the actual hobart city council site.)
http://www.ultra106five.com.au/listenagain.php?pg=721
That looks like a great way to test the waters, having a specific purpose and then broadening it. Thanks for the link, much appreciated!