As you may be aware, I quite like things from Japan and it’ll come as no great suprise then that I follow Danny Choo (@dannychoo) and Neil Duckett (@Neil_Duckett) quite a bit (as they are major Gaijin bloggers in Japan) and it was therefore with fun I found Danny’s post about Bike Storage In Japan.
It’s quite fasincating to watch the machine accept the bike, store it and then spit it out afterwards: and with the Mayor Of London (@MayorOfLondon) looking at introducing hire bikes around London, then this could be the perfect idea. Have one of these Japanese Bike Parks near every major London tube/train station (maybe between Euston and Kings Cross St Pancras, Victoria, London Bridge, Liverpool Street, Paddington and Waterloo) with each unit having around 20-40 bikes available for hire (the rest of the bike park can be used for “public use”). Swipe an Oyster card (or other “token”) at the machine to hire a bike, and return it (bikes are RFID’d tagged for extra security) at any bike park to finish hiring it.
Of course, there is the slight problem with the “oh noes, terrorists could use it in x/y/z manner” doom-sayers, but determined terrorists will always find a way so in the words of a certain organisation “so don’t worry and just enjoy your life.”.
Thoughts?