The company is Velib‘. Its simple, creative and expandable business model adds utility to any metropolitan area. Instead of taking a cab, bus or car, users of the service rent a bike from one of the multiple bike racks located throughout the city, then cycle to wherever they need to go. When the user is finished with the bike, they can return it to the machine from where it came, or to any other location around town. The bikes are hired out based on a subscription to the service, available by day, month or year.

While researching this business model we came across another company, bikedispenser.com, which operates out of Amsterdam. These bikes are rented out by way of dispenser - call it a vending machine for bikes.

bikedispenser.com protects itself from theft and vandalism by fitting each bike with an RFID tag, and scanning renter credit cards. Just think about how wonderful it would be to ride a bike to your lunch meetings, enjoy an excellent meal, and then burn calories on the way back to the office.

Opportunities:

We can see two big opportunities for companies such as these to expand worldwide. Hopefully they make their way to Canada soon!

Advertising: Facilitating advertising both on the bike dispenser and individual bikes (decal form) would create opportunity for this company to establish a secondary revenue stream.

Franchising: It bothers us that in a city like Vancouver (which is supposed to be one of the most sustainable cities in the world) we fail to provide citizens with practical, cost effective, and emission reducing transportation alternatives. Europe is always so far ahead! If companies or private go-green investors had the opportunity to own a bike dispenser franchise - a great idea like this could really take off, not to mention, would be extremely lucrative.