Zoomi Life

Bicycle and electric bicycle (e-bike) share programs are becoming pretty popular, especially in Europe. Even here in America where it’s usually all about the car, bike share programs are popping up in New York, San Francisco, LA, and other cities.

Citybyke is an automated system for renting and returning e-bikes that utilizes an ATM-like kiosk/charging station that controls a bank of bicycles. Think of it as a combination of the ATM machine you use to get cash and the cart rentals at the airport.

Basically it works like this: you use the kiosk to rent a bike (with a credit card or member card). The ATM gives you a PIN number that you use at the docking station to release the bike. You then return to any kiosk station in the area and plug the bike back into an empty docking station, which ends your rental.

Citybyke envisions membership plans of daily, weekly, or monthly pre-paid membership plans. Daily plans are handled directly at the kiosk while monthly members can sign up for auto-bill or similar setups with a set number of hours per month. Yearly memberships can be ordered online.

Currently, Citybyke is only available in the UK with memberships starting at two pounds per day. The local partner company, Share Limited, manages the kiosks in the UK

The Bike

The Citybyke system uses a proprietary bicycle made to match with the docking station. They are interesting-looking and make extensive use of fairings and enclosed components to keep any moving parts from being exposed as well as to prevent theft of bicycle parts. The bikes are also modularly-built so that portions can be removed and replaced quickly and to allow for localized requirements like lights or reflectors to easily be added.

Not a lot of technical information is available for the bikes, but they’re likely equivalent to most mid-priced ($1,500) e-bikes. They are pedal-assist, but can run (slowly) in electric-only mode.

Source: Citybyke