Jun 07, 2016In April 2016, the Toronto Parking Authority (TPA) announced that it had selected Montreal-based bike-sharing solutions company PBSC Urban Solutions as the new supplier for its Bike Share Toronto network. This year, the TPA will purchase 1,000 new RFID-enabled bicycles and 120 new stations from PBSC. This acquisition more than doubles the number of bikes in TPA's bicycle-sharing program. Meanwhile, Chicago's Divvy program, which has comprised 476 PBSC stations and 4,760 PBSC bikes since 2013, has begun expanding its network by adding 99 stations and 1,000 bikes.
PBSC was launched in 2008 to provide a bike-sharing system to its home city of Montreal. The BIXI-Montreal network now has 5,200 bikes and 460 stations. To date, PBSC has provided its solution to approximately 20 cities worldwide, as well as to several colleges. PBSC provides and operates the bicycle-sharing program for its clients, using passive high-frequency (HF) RFID tags supplied by Syrma Technology and PBSC's own readers, made by a third-party manufacturer. The use of RFID accomplishes two things, the organization reports: identifying a user in order to provide him or her with access to a bike, and identifying the bicycle itself once it is docked at a station and locked in place.
Since its launching, PBSC has used a half-million 13.56 MHz Syrma RFID tags compliant with the ISO 15693 standard, and 45,000 of its bicycles are currently in use within about 20 cities. An RFID tag is embedded in each of PBSC's bicycles, in the triangle-shaped lock mount attached to the front of the bike, just beneath the handlebars.
The cities and colleges that are PBSC's customers can provide the bikes to riders in two different scenarios, says Jean-Paul Paloux, PBSC's operations and R&D director. In the case of tourists or one-time local users, a renter proceeds to a kiosk installed near a bike station (or uses PBSC's mobile app), then inputs credit-card information and retrieves a five-digit code. The individual can use that code to release the locking mechanism at the docking point of a particular bike, which is then associated with that customer.
Upon returning the bicycle to that same docking station, or to another station elsewhere in the city, the user pushes the front of the bike into the docking space. A Syrma HF reader captures the tag ID on the bike's triangular lock mount, via the reader antenna installed at that docking space, and forwards that information to the PBSC software on its own hosted server, indicating that the bike has been returned. This can be accomplished via a cabled or cellular connection. The tag is then linked to that location, where it continues to be read until another individual borrows it.
The second scenario is intended for regular commuters. In this case, a rider subscribes by paying for a membership online and receives a reusable key fob with a built-in Syrma RFID tag. The unique ID number encoded to the tag is linked to that rider and his or her account information. Upon selecting a bicycle from the station, the rider inserts the RFID key fob into an aluminum, vandal-proof cassette surrounding the PBSC reader. As the key is inserted, it pushes a lever that awakens the reader, which captures the tag's ID and transmits that data to the server software. After confirming the account's validity, the software releases the lock for that bike.
The RFID data not only provides bike-sharing program operators with a means of limiting bicycle access to paid users, but also collects historic data for maintenance purposes. For instance, Paloux explains, the system knows how many times each bike was used, and for how long. The software can determine the distance that each bicycle has likely traveled within a specified span of time, which helps PBSC to schedule the maintenance work it provides to its clients. "We may know that bike 23 has been used 1,500 times," Paloux says. "Then we would know it needs maintenance of the chain."
Because the bicycles are often returned more frequently to some locations than to others, they periodically need to be moved by trucks to ensure that they are distributed at the proper place and time. Without RFID, this would require PBSC workers to drive around the city visually checking every station, but with the technology in place, PBSC is able to view in the software which bicycles are docked at which locations, and then send vehicles to move them as needed (for instance, if one station is nearly full and another is empty).
The location data is also made available to riders via an iOS- or Android-based CycleFinder app that PBSC offers at the Google Play and iTunes websites. Users can access the app to view which stations in their area have bicycles available, as well as their locations.
The use of RFID can also provide alerting, Paloux says. For instance, if a specific bike had not been docked for 48 hours, with no station reader interrogating its tag during that time period, an alert could be issued to the appropriate managers at PBSC, or to the city, indicating that it was missing.
PBSC is now offering electric bicycles (e-bikes) known as Boost bikes, which have integrated pedal-assisting electric motors and rechargeable batteries to power them. The batteries could also be used to power the bike's tag, boosting its read range and enabling other functionality. However, the company declines to specify the type of functionality it might add.
Syrma Technology, headquartered in India and with offices in the United States, France, Switzerland, Germany and Singapore, makes RFID hardware—including readers based on Texas Instruments' and NXP Semiconductors' reference designs—for bike-sharing programs, as well as for a variety of other applications. The company can also provide bicycle-sharing solutions that utilize its own RFID middleware to provide access to the bikes and track their usage. The middleware enables inventory management based on the tagged bikes' locations, explains Paul Dahl, Syrma's business development director, as well as a billing system to link each user's payment information with his or her account and bike access.
According to Dahl, Syrma also provides its passive HF RFID tags to a leading hobbyist radio-controlled car manufacturer, which embeds the tags into rechargeable batteries for authentication purposes. "Syrma RFID tags are helping to identify the type of battery and its capacity," he explains, "ultimately cutting down on wasted time by eliminating the hassle of programming and using complicated setups." A user can read the tags via a handheld RFID reader in order to confirm a particular car's battery type before attempting to recharge that battery, in order to prevent errors that could damage a battery or the car itself.
Additionally, the company provides its passive Near Field Communication (NFC) RFID tags to the medical industry, which is affixing the tags to blister packs to enable the reuse of untouched pharmaceuticals. If a person receives medication and then decides that he or she no longer wants it, the medicine can be shipped back to the provider. If the drugs are tagged with Syrma tamper-resistant tags, the provider can determine whether the product is intact, thereby ensuring that it never resells any medication that has been tampered with.
"This is one example among the various health-care-focused RFID solutions that Syrma has developed over the years," Dahl states. "We remain very excited about the RFID use cases in health care, and we see a lot of future potential for our RFID solutions to make a positive impact in health care in a variety of applications." To date, Syrma's RFID solutions for the health-care industry have included tags, software and readers for authenticating and monitoring the use of medical instruments, as well as disposable and durable medical supplies. In addition, Syrma has developed RFID solutions for tracking assets and monitoring patients.
