A "smart" successor to the "free bikes" programs operated by numerous European cities, notably Copenhagen, has recently come into the scene. The Danish capital city now offers about 2,000 distinctively marked, reconditioned bicycles as a public service to residents and tourists in the downtown area for a coin-operated refundable deposit.
A nominal fee smart card version of the program is now getting underway. As of this spring, nine Smart Bike programs operated with chip cards are in operation around the world. Eight of these programs are run by the U.K. urban design firm, Clear Channel Adshel, and are located in France, Norway, the U.K., and Singapore, involving at this point a total of about 1,000 bikes.
Bike activists in Alexandria, Va., and Annapolis, Md., are working to bring this idea to North America, and want to link the bikes with existing transit systems.
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