Montreal's Public Bikes To Use Web, RFID, Solar

Ian Lamont writes "Montreal is preparing to launch a Web- and RFID-enabled public bike system that allows residents and visitors to rent bicycles at special depots scattered throughout the city. Using a Web site, riders can check out a real-time inventory of available bicycles at the depot locations. At the depots, a solar-powered base station will process credit cards or member cards. The bike docks use RFID, and the system is supposedly easy to install and maintain. A pilot program will launch in September with four bike depots."

Comments

They only get a few months..

[QuantumTheologian]

I'm just guessing, but the bicycle may not be the best means of transportation in the winter, particularly in Montreal.

Re:mmmmmk

[Anonymous Coward]

There must be some system implemented for preventing the bikes from getting stolen. We have a similar system in Vienna, Austria; when it first started off a couple of years back, the bikes were chained onto bicycle racks and could be unlocked like a shopping trolley with a 2 Euro coin (which would be refunded as soon as the bike was returned to a rack again). However within a couple of weeks virtually all bikes had been stolen and sold in other countries. The system was later reimplemented using credit card verification, and now works quite successfully.

I'm sure the people in charge of this project in Montreal would have looked at examples from other cities where these systems already exist, and deemed this sort of protection necessary, there's no need to get all worked up about it being some huge conspiracy to track citizens around the city, after all, it's mostly used by people enjoying a quiet stroll around the city on a nice day, I doubt much confidential information can be extracted by tracking bikes driving through parks.

Re:Seems to work in Sweden...

[flurdy]

Got them in Oslo, Norway too.

I use them all the time, they make getting around town so easy.

• You dont need to worry about locking up your own bike.
• You dont need to get back to a specific spot to pick your own bike.
• You are not forced to go both ways by bike. You can cycle to town, the get a tram, tube, taxi etc home later if you want to.
• You dont spend 20mins trying to find parking for your car
• You dont spend 10mins waiting for a tram
• You can go directions where public transport might not go directly
• It only costs 70kr/year which is about $14 as the bikes and bikesheds are sponsored with ads.

The system here also has a realtime website with status of their 90ish depots/bikesheds. And if the one you are at is empty, then the screen lists the status of nearby depots.

There are some drawbacks with the free city bikes:

• It is too popular, often the bike rails are empty
• People tend to go the same directions/places at the same time. So even with trucks driving around to redistribute the bikes, the ones on the city centre limits are during day time often empty and the ones in the centre are full.
• Even with constant maintenance some of the bikes have taken a beating
• Some people steal the free city bikes. Makes no sense to me, as they are virtually free.

So I fully recommend them, it has made us get about town so much easier and quicker (and thus more often), but they are only useful if the depots are everywhere and stocked up.