100 PERCENT DESIGN SHANGHAI
HAMBURG HARLEY DAYS 2008
BERLIN DESIGN FESTIVAL 2008
NEW YORK DESIGN WEEK 2008
MAKER FAIRE 2008
Posted by: Jeannie Choe
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Comments (2)
Dutch design agency Springtime scooped up a Spark Design & Architecture Award this year for a concept that promotes efficiency in eco-friendly transport. Bike Dispenser units would ideally be placed in cities where bike rental/free bike exchange programs are promoted, allowing easy one-way journeys and convenient pick-up/drop-off locations in various neighborhoods, while also keeping everyone's costs down. Riders pay a small fee to rent the bikes which are outfitted with RFID chips to track and log journeys. The nitty gritty of return conditions, repairs, and theft, aren't clearly addressed, but it's just in concept mode for now, after all.
via treehugger
Troika
Paul Budnitz from Kidrobot
Jason Bruges
Donald Norman
Comments
is it? I saw one in Eindhoven and it looked mightily real.
The general principle may already be in place, with this just being an attempt to tart it up.
In Copenhagen (Denmark), for example, you can hire "city bikes" throughout summer for free. You just leave a small deposit - ie, about $4 - that is returned when you bring the bike to a return station. If you decide to just abandon the bike wherever you finish with it, someone else will just take it and use it, perhaps getting the deposit back.
By the end of summer, I understand that most of the bikes have been lost, trashed or stolen, but they've decided that's an acceptable cost for the quality of life that it provides the city's residents.
Darned scando's really do get some things so very right!