Denver Rolls Along on RFID-Powered Bikes

By Mary Catherine O'Connor

May 17, 2010—In cities around the world, bike-sharing programs have cropped up in recent years as a means of providing commuters and tourists in urban corridors with a convenient, zero-emissions transportation alternative (see Bike Rental Program Peddles Smart Cards and Montreal RFID-enabled Bike Project Picks Up Speed for examples in Lyon, France, and Quebec, Canada, respectively). Last month, Denver became the latest city to embrace this trend, launching Denver B-cycle, the largest bike-sharing program in the United States, with 500 bikes available through more than 50 RFID-enabled bike stations (B-stations) throughout the city.

The B-stations, supplied by Kiosk Information Systems, include locking bicycle racks and a kiosk similar to an automated teller machine. The bikes, made by Wisconsin-based Trek, are secured via a rack's locking docks. A station might contain as few as five locking docks, or as many as 25. The quantity of docks at each station is determined by the amount of traffic that B-cycle expects the stations to receive throughout the day. Generally, it keeps an average of 1.5 locking docks per bike. Users can access a bicycle in one of two ways. Infrequent users can utilize a credit card to purchase a short-term, 24-hour membership at a bike station's kiosk. This allows an individual to select a bicycle and, once the transaction is complete, remove it from the rack, with a beep and a green light indicating the selected bike is unlocked and available for use.

With the B-cycle system, each locking dock contains an RFID interrogator for reading a bike's embedded low-frequency RFID tag.

Alternatively, those planning to use a B-cycle on a regular basis can purchase a 7-day, 30-day or annual membership online (not at a station kiosk). Those who purchase such memberships receive an RFID card, called a B-card, in the mail. They can then use that card to retrieve any available bike from a station, with the added bonus that they can skip the kiosk and go directly to the bicycle and unlock it.

"We think of the B-card as a FasTrak for bikes," says Andrew Davison, the chief marketing officer for B-cycle LLC, referring to the RFID-based electronic toll-collection system used in California. "Imagine a busy [station] with 25-plus bikes, and a line of people waiting at the kiosk." The card system, he says, makes the process of obtaining a bicycle considerably faster than using the kiosk.

B-cycle LLC is a national organization formed through a partnership between health insurance company Humana, Trek and ad firm Crispin Porter + Bogusky, to develop the technology and business systems used for Denver's program, run by a nonprofit organization known as Denver Bike Sharing. B-cycle LLC is also working with other cities and countries worldwide, to launch similar bike-sharing programs that may or may not carry the B-cycle name.