A bicycle-sharing system, bike share program, public bicycle scheme, or public bike share (PBS) scheme, is a shared transport service in which bicycles or electric bicycles are available for shared short-term use by individuals at low cost.
These systems are designed to provide an affordable, flexible, and environmentally friendly mode of transport, often serving as a "first- and last-mile" connection to public transport and helping to reduce traffic congestion and emissions.
Modern bicycle-sharing systems typically operate as either docked networks, where bicycles are rented from and returned to fixed stations, or dockless systems, which use mobile technology and GPS to enable more flexible pick-up and drop-off. Advances in technology since the 2000s have enabled rapid global expansion, with thousands of systems now operating in cities worldwide.
Bicycle-sharing systems originated in grassroot efforts in Europe in the mid-1960s. By 2022, bike share schemes were offered in approximately 3,000 cities worldwide, including Dubai, New York, Paris, Mexico City, Montreal and Barcelona. Today bike-share systems have become an integral part of urban mobility strategies in some cities, offering social, environmental, and health benefits while complementing public transportation networks. They can improve accessibility and equity in urban transport, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, and promote physical activity, contributing to better public health outcomes.
Bicycle-sharing systems have also faced challenges, including bicycle theft and vandalism, uneven distribution of bikes, high operational and maintenance cost, and regulatory concerns over urban clutter, particularly with dockless schemes.
History
The earliest notable community bicycle program was the White Bicycle Plan () in Amsterdam, initiated in the summer of 1965 by Luud Schimmelpennink in association with the Provo movement.Bike-Sharing Programs Hit the Streets in Over 500 Cities Worldwide ; Earth Policy Institute; Larsen, Janet; 25 April 2013 The group painted fifty bicycles white and placed them in various locations around the city, which were intended to be used freely by members of the public for one-time trips. The scheme was one of a number of "White Plans" proposed by the movement, which comprised various strategies for improving livability or transportation in Amsterdam. Within a month, most of the bicycles had been stolen and the rest were found in nearby canals.Shirky, Clay Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (2008.) Penguin. pg 282–283 Similar programs still exist elsewhere in the Netherlands, e.g., at Hoge Veluwe National Park, where a set of bicycles may be used freely within the park. Years later, Schimmelpennink admitted that "the Sixties experiment never existed in the way people believe" and that "no more than about ten bikes" had been put out on the street "as a suggestion of the bigger idea." As the police had temporarily confiscated all of the White Bicycles within a day of their release to the public, the White Bicycle experiment had actually lasted less than one month.
Ernest Callenbach's utopian novel Ecotopia (1975) illustrates the idea. In his depiction of a society that does not use fossil fuels, Callenbach described a bicycle sharing system which is available to inhabitants as an integrated part of a wider public transportation system.
One of the first community bicycle projects in the United States was started in Portland, Oregon in 1994 by civic and environmental activists Tom O'Keefe, Joe Keating and Steve Gunther. Similarly to the White Bicycle Plan, Portland's Yellow Bike Project released a number of bicycles to the streets for unrestricted use. While successful in terms of publicity, the programme proved unsustainable due to theft and vandalism of the bicycles. The Yellow Bike Project was eventually terminated, and replaced with the Create A Commuter (CAC) program, which provides free secondhand bicycles to low-income individuals as a means to commute to work or attend job training courses.Law, Steve, People in Need Offered Free Bikes, The Portland Tribune, 20 January 2011: Originally, CAC handed out free bicycles to any low-income applicant; this was changed after many of the CAC bicycles began appearing for resale in classified advertisements.
In 1995, the ByCylken system was introduced in Copenhagen by Morten Sadolin and Ole Wessung, initially with a fleet of 300 bicycles. Riders paid a refundable deposit at one of 100 special locking bike stands (similar in principle to coin-deposit shopping carts), then had unlimited use of the bike within a specified 'city bike zone'.Free City Bike Schemes, Søren B. Jensen, City of Copenhagen, Conference Proceedings, Amsterdam 2000 The idea was developed after both founders were victims of bicycle theft one night in 1989. ByCylken was the first large-scale urban bike share program to feature specially designed bikes with parts that could not be used on other bikes.
Bike sharing programs later gravitated to the use of smart cards to prevent theft. One of the first such 'smart bike' programs was the Grippa bike storage rack system used in Portsmouth (UK)'s Bikeabout system.Cycle Security – VeloTronBlack, Colin, Faber, Oscar, and Potter, Stephen, Portsmouth Bikeabout: A Smart-Card Bike Club Scheme, The Open University (1998)DeMaio, Paul, and Gifford, Jonathan, Will Smart Bikes Succeed as Public Transportation in the United States, Journal of Public Transportation, Vol. 7, No. 2 (2004), p. 6. The Bikeabout scheme was launched in October 1995 by the University of Portsmouth as part of its Green Transport Plan in an effort to cut car travel by staff and students between campus sites. Funded in part by the EU's ENTRANCE program, the Bikeabout scheme was a "smart card" fully automated system.Hoogma, Remco, et al, Experimenting For Sustainable Transport: The approach of Strategic Niche Management, London: Spon Press, (2002), pp. 4–11, 176 For a small fee, users were issued magnetic striped 'smart cards' readable at a covered 'bike store' kiosk, unlocking the bike from its storage rack. Station-located CCTV cameras limited vandalism. On arrival at the destination station, the smart card unlocked cycle rack and recorded the bike's return, registering if the bike was returned with damage or if the rental time exceeded a three-hour maximum. Implemented with an original budget of approximately £200,000, the Portsmouth Bikeabout scheme was never very successful in terms of rider usage,The Portsmouth Bikeabout program never exceeded 500 users at any time during its operational existence. in part due to the limited number of bike kiosks and hours of operation. Seasonal weather restrictions and concerns over unjustified charges for bike damage also imposed barriers to usage. The Bikeabout program was discontinued by the university in 1998 in favor of expanded minibus service; the total costs of the Bikeabout program were never disclosed.University of Portsmouth Academic Staff Association, Minutes of ASA Executive Meeting, 20 October 1999University of Portsmouth Academic Staff Association, Meeting of ASA Executive, Annexe: presentation by Pro-Vice Chancellor Mike Bateman on mobility policy, 16 January 2002
The modern wave of electronically locked bikes took off in France. In 1998 the city of Rennes launched Velo a la cart using a magnetic card to release bicycles, which was operated by Clear Channel. Then the French advertising company, JCDecaux begain launching larger systems in Vienna (2003), Lyon (2005), and Paris (2007), among others. Vélib', the Paris system captured the attention of the world and catalyzed steep growth in bikesharing systems around Europe, Asia, South America, and North America. In North America, the BIXI project (a portmanteau of the French "bicyclette" and "taxi" or "bicyle taxi") launched by the City of Montreal in 2009. It garnered a sizable ridership and the city created the Public Bike System Company to begin selling the underlying infrastructure to several other cities, including Washington D.C.'s Capital Bikeshare (2010), New York City's Citi Bike (2013), and London's "Boris bikes (2010)". The PBSC was privatised in 2014 and was later acquired by Lyft in 2022. Separately in 2018, Lyft had acquired Motivate, an operator of many BIXI-based systems. Meanwhile, the original BIXI system has been operated directly by the City of Montreal since 2014.
Bike share technology has evolved over the course of decades, with programs in Asia in particular having grown exponentially. Of the world's 15 largest public bike share programs, 13 are in China; in 2012, the largest were in Wuhan and Hangzhou, with around 90,000 and 60,000 bikes respectively. By December 2016, roughly 1,000 cities worldwide had a bike-sharing program. Electric bikes have also been incorporated into sharing schemes.
In July 2020, Google Maps began including bike share systems in its route recommendations.
Categorization
Bike-sharing systems have developed and evolved with society changes and technological improvements. The systems can be grouped into five categories or generations.
Staffed stations Short-term checkout
Also known as bicycle rental, bike hire or zero generation. In this system a bicycle can be rented or borrowed from a location and returned to that location. These bicycle renting systems often cater to day-trippers or tourists. This system is also used by cycling schools for potential cyclists who do not have a bicycle. The locations or stations are not automated but are run by employees or volunteers.
Regional programs have been implemented where numerous renting locations are set up at railway stations and at local businesses (usually restaurants, museums and hotels) creating a network of locations where bicycles can be borrowed from and returned (e.g. ZweiRad FreiRad with at times 50 locations). In this kind of network for example a railway station master can allocate a bicycle to a user that then returns it at a different location, for example a hotel. Some such systems require paying a fee, and some do not. Usually the user will be registered or a deposit will be left by the renting facility. The EnCicla Bike Share System in Medellín on its inception in 2011 had 6 staffed locations. It later grew to 32 automatic and 19 staffed stations making it a hybrid between a zero generation and third generation system.
Long-term checkout
Sometimes known as bike library systems, these bicycles may be lent free of charge, for a refundable deposit, or for a small fee. A bicycle is checked out to one person who will typically keep it for several months, and is encouraged or obliged to lock it between uses. A disadvantage is a lower usage frequency, around three uses per day on average as compared to 2 to 15 uses per day typically experienced with other bike-sharing schemes. Advantages of long-term use include rider familiarity with the bicycle, and constant, instant readiness.
The bicycle can be checked out like a library book, a liability waiver can be collected at check-out, and the bike can be returned any time. For each trip, a Library Bike user can choose the bike instead of a car, thus lowering car usage. The long-term rental system generally results in fewer repair costs to the scheme administrator, as riders are incentivised to obtain minor maintenance in order to keep the bike in running order during the long rental period. Most of the long-term systems implemented to date are funded solely through charitable donations of second-hand bicycles, using unpaid volunteer labour to maintain and administer the bicycle fleet. While reducing or eliminating the need for public funding, such a scheme imposes an outer limit to program expansion. The Arcata Bike Library, in California, has loaned over 4000 bicycles using this system.
White bikes