Cycling City: Lyon

In Lyon the city council with collaboration with an advertising agency has started a public cycling program called velib, which tries to solve the problem of traffic congestions, environment and public health. The scheme is funded by JC Decaux in exchange of exclusive access to public billboards. It all started with 2,000 bikes and 200 bike stations where the users can hire the bikes for a annual rental fee of few Euros. After using the bikes they have to park them back to any of the nearby stations.

Success of this system has lead to plans of introducing a similar system in other cities. Using a prepaid card, residents can rent city bikes for free for the first half hour. And for the next half hour there is charge of 1 Euro giving incentive for people to use these bikes for short duration and return them back.

The program which started in 2005 with few thousand bikes has now grown to 20,000 bikes and 1,450 rental stations! This means that you will find one rental station within 300 meters of any point in the city.

The addvertising company which funded the project believes that the revenue they generate from addvertising space whould be higher than the costs involved in running the trasport system. The users of the rental program are happy because it offers cheap and healthy transportaion. The city addministration is happy becasue it offers an alternative to existing crowded transport system and roads and provides good pitch for election campains. This is what i would call win win situation for all parties involves.

Click to play a video on Velib