WIN WIN solution - making bike rentals is expensive because of the bicycles maintenance, insurance etc. The followng solves this, by getting the public (or various groups) to leave bikes for public use during the day, and get paid for it.
Instead of locking your bike with your own key, lock it to the "RentYourBike" poles.
By calling 1800-RENTBIKE and entering the info, a cellular activated lock opens and allows you to add your bike to the pool of bikes people can rent. Anyone who rents this bike will pay you for it.
To rent a bike, you dial 1800-RENTBIKE from your cellphone, enter the pole number (listed on the sign) and follow the instructions to have your picture taken.
The renting facility does not have to buy and maintain bikes, only to provide the facility. People of the city can simply add bikes to the pool, and make money.-- pashute, Nov 04 2008 Streetcar http://www.streetcar.co.uk/Join the club, find a location and you're off. While the cars themselves are owned and maintained by the company, people participating can donate their allocated parking spaces for use by the pool. [zen_tom, Nov 05 2008] Zipcar http://zipcar.co.uk/Similar thing to Streetcar [zen_tom, Nov 05 2008] But these bikes would never get maintained. If I put my spare bike into this scheme (because there's absolutely no way I'd ever let anyone else use the bike I rely on for commuting), it'll get picked up by someone and dropped off somewhere else, then picked up from there by someone else and dropped off in yet another location, and so on. In theory it's trackable, through the renting process, but do you think I'm going to travel hundreds of miles to go and change a puncture on it?-- hippo, Nov 04 2008 Nice idea, baked with cars here, in London.-- zen_tom, Nov 04 2008 zen_tom, can you load a link for this system? would like to know more....-- williamsmatt, Nov 05 2008 Done [williamsmatt] it's not exactly the same (the cars aren't owned by members of the scheme, but it is possible to participate by donating access to one's allocated parking space in exchange for free access to the service) and the fleet is maintained by the people running the service.-- zen_tom, Nov 05 2008 Isn't this just a white bicycle scheme?-- nineteenthly, Nov 05 2008 random, halfbakery