From Surrey Transportation Planner Luciana Moraes:
This is a really cool map that shows real-time usage of bike-share systems around the world:
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Cool? It’s bloody amazing!
Maps from London – Paris (via citybik.es) – Bordeaux – Rennes – Lille – Nice – Montpellier – Barcelona (via citybik.es) – Saragossa – Tel Aviv – Vienna – Toronto – Washington DC/Arlington – Miami Beach – Mexico City – Rio de Janeiro – Melbourne – Seoul – Kunshan and more.
Plus the weather.
The data flows will keep transportation geeks occupied for years!
In my (admittedly dimming) mind, modern public bike-share systems are a wonderful mix of low and high tech. The bicycle is ancient and really pretty low tech, but the things that make the BIXIs of the world so attractive is some nifty high-tech integration. Components include dock and bicycle sensors, data collection via wireless networks, and scads of back-room computing that feeds Internet applications both fixed and mobile.
And the maps shown above are a great example of the high-tech side.
And it all stems from decidedly low-tech and fundamental human needs — I want to move around (transportation), I want to be active, and I really want it all to be convenient and simple.