Bike Vending Machine

This is the urban bicycle-rental stand, which won an award at this year's Spark Design & Architecture Awards. It's designed to allow one-way journeys, with drop off and pick-up points in various locations around a city. Each bike would be fitted with an RFID chip to track and log journeys, and customers would pay a small charge to rent a bike. It was designed by Dutch agency, Springtime, who have worked for Nike, Coca Cola and Toyota.

Several cities have implemented bike rental or free-bike schemes, and this system, excluding initial investment, could help to keep costs down. Of course, there are problems with it, such as the fact that you are relying on the previous renter to return the bike in good condition. Presumably there is no way for the machine to know if the bike it is handing out has a flat tire or other problem. ::BikeDispenser via ::TrendHunter via ::Gizmodo