www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,68576,00.html
Vlo'v Grand Lyon, is open to anyone a rmed with a credit card. Since 90 percent of trips take less t han half an hour, most subscribers pay nothing. In just three months, the program has signed up 15,000 subscribers who ta ke 4,000 trips a day and travel over 24,800 miles a week on 2,000 public bikes at 150 bike stations.
"Certainly, bikes are one of the most ef ficient forms of public transport. Lyon isn't the first city to try a public rent-a-bike or borrow-a-bike pl an, but its program is showing more legs than most.
Or the bikes were simply stolen, as happened with Amster dam's White Bikes. Users must submit their credit-card in formation to become a subscriber. They also pay a 150 euro ($180) deposi t, either by check or credit card pre-authorization. If a subscriber kee ps the bike for more than 24 hours, the deposit is cashed. Technology helps, too, and Lyon's distinctive silver and red bicycles are packed with it. Attempts to steal bikes from a rack set off an alarm, w hile a built-in lock secures bikes during rentals. Motion sensors turn on a red taillight when the bike comes to a stop. A m icrochip exchanges information with electronic bike racks, identifying t he bike, the subscriber and when it was rented and returned. Bikes even have sensors that check the brakes, lights, tire pressure and gears ever y time they are parked. A control center keeps track of the data, sending out mechanics or a shut tle to move bikes from one station to another as needed. The bikes are a vailable 24 hours a day, seven days a week, though currently weekday rus h hours see the greatest demand, indicating that people are using the se rvice to commute.
"But they wil l be amortized over time, and as the service spreads to other cities, we can expect some economies of scale." Decaux absorbs the entire cost f or setting up and running the service, and returns any rental fees the s ervice collects to Grand Lyon as part of its contract to use advertising space on Lyon's public bus shelters. Decaux's bus shelter contract is f or 13 years, so in the midterm the system is secure. Montpellier, Marseill e, Geneva, Barcelona and even Amsterdam, the cycling capital of Europe, all sent delegations to examine it.
Cancel Note: You are reading this message either because you can not see our css files (served from Akamai for performance reasons), or because you do n ot have a standards-compliant browser.
Note: You are reading this message instead of message board comments eith er because you have javascript turned off, are running software that pre vents you from viewing 3rd party javascript files (ours are served from Akamai for performance reasons), or because you do not have a supported browser.
Terms & Conditions Note: You are reading this message either because you can not see our css files (served from Akamai for performance reasons), or because you do n ot have a standards-compliant browser.
|
http://csua.com/feed/