SMART CITY BIKE

Take it where you want, Put it back where you want.  Discover where and how.

Just came back from Berlin where i discovered a great service provided by the German train company: call a bike

You can find all over the city bikes digitally and securely locked available to rent at any time just by calling a phone number or going to their website. Once you have paid (credit card) you are given a code that will enable you to unlock the bike. Just precise how long you wish to keep it. Nice for tourists and people who look for easy alternative environment-friendly public transportation. A good example to inspire other occidental crowded capitals.

For the smart guys who would be tempted to just steal or not give it back the bike: a GPS is embedded enabling to locate the bike at any time (Hey great idea by the way for bike constructors/lockers fabricant for people like me who where stollen their expensive bike). Break the GPS you Break the Bike. Break the Lock you break the bike. They thought about it all.

Except 2 things: On-bike/On-line instructions are only in German and price is too high (15 euro/day)

Comments

[blundstone]

hi ouriel!

in vienna, we've got a similar bike service for about 4 years now too :-) they nearly shut down the service after 2 years because people stole all the bikes - now they're secured and you have to pay a little fee to use them (they were free at the beginning).