The problems of renting out electric scooters for short periods of time and short distances at low prices are two: (1) The renter has to give it back quickly. Most of the time not convenient. (2) The scooter is easily stolen.
Enter the Scooterway:
Similar to a PRT system (Personal Rapid Transit) these scooters are tethered up to a ropeway above. You have the freedom of moving right or left, so you can park or overtake, but you are confined to a single lane.
Going the other way, you use a different lane.
This confines the scooter's use to the designated lanes, and makes for an urban transportation solution for relatively short distances. A similar system for bicycles or even electric go carts can be set up for larger distances and where weather is a concern.
You park the scooter in one of the stations, to end the transaction within the time limit, and plug it in so its recharged.-- pashute, Nov 10 2011 Why not power them via the tether?-- spidermother, Nov 10 2011 [21Q] the tether is a large loop around the ropeway, so you use one of the conveniently provided ramps to jump through the loop of the scooter in front.-- pocmloc, Nov 10 2011 bun for hoopjumping-- Voice, Nov 10 2011 I can find no flaw in this idea.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 10 2011 The geometry doesn't work out very well. What holds the ropeway up? And how do tether connections for a scooter get past the hold-ropeway-up connections? Worse, you can't have a second scooterway tether line crossing at right angles because one ropeway will be above the other (to avoid an impassible knot) and a scooter tethered to the upper ropeway will have its tether run into and be stopped by the lower ropeway.
Now imagine the tether went down, instead, into a slot in the roadway (making it shorter and less an eyesore). UNDER the slot there can be a widening, and at the end of the tether is also a wide thing, preventing the tether-end from coming out of the ground through the slot. And, slots along right angles can cross each other at the same level.-- Vernon, Nov 11 2011 I'll make an animation that shows how the geometry works, although if I spell out the full implementation of something is it still worthy of the halfbakery? Or is the half in the bakery only a bun? I meant pun. ?-- pashute, Nov 14 2011 Why physical tethers? Why not just a GPS transceiver wired to a few ounces of C4 under the seat? If the scooter goes out of range or is not returned within the alotted time, it explodes. Much simpler, and it has the added benefit of weeding petty criminals and deadbeats out of the gene pool.
Bun to the slot-scooter idea, [Vernon]. Can you post it in 500 words or less?-- Alterother, Nov 14 2011 random, halfbakery