This year is the 10th ­anniversary of the world’s first large-scale bike-sharing scheme, the Velib in Paris, whose immediate success – 20 million users in its first year – prompted cities across the world to wheel out their own copies. A decade later there are 1,000 of these schemes, from Milton Keynes to the medina in Marrakech, with 17 across the UK and more opening this year.



Some have back-pedalled: Seattle will shut its Pronto scheme in March, a victim of hills, rain, budget cuts and the city’s mandatory helmet law, while in Spain cash-strapped local authorities have put the brakes on half of the country’s 130 schemes.



And just as city dwellers have got used to the sight of rows of docking stations – often jammed-full or empty – the Chinese are promising a ride-anywhere, anytime Uber-style revolution that will make docking stations a thing of the past – and possibly kick-start an explosion of bike usage.

Beijing entrepreneur Dai Wei, just 25, is already flooding Shanghai and ­Singapore with his trademark Ofo yellow bicycles, where users tap an app to find a bike, jump on it, then leave it where they like. No more are users tied to finding a docking station and hoping a bike is available – and, crucially, that there is a docking space at their destination. What’s more, the Chinese have very deep pockets.



Ofo is backed by the multibillion-dollar company that has edged Uber out of China – and claims to already have five million registered users in 24 cities – while rival Mobike has just raised $215m from tech giant Tencent and others. Both companies are now pouring money into a battle for global dominance, ­telling cities they can fund bike-sharing schemes without any public subsidy with a pricing model that charges as ­little as 10p a use and with no annual charge. Some cities may even be given money to host a scheme, in a complete upending of the subsidy-driven model that has so far been in use. Compare that to London where, despite Santander’s £44m seven-year sponsorship deal, London taxpayers have to cover £10m of its £25m annual operating costs.

Cambridge, already Britain’s most cycle-friendly city (it helps that it’s very flat) will be the first to see Ofo bikes in Europe, with the company expected to roll out 500 bikes towards the end of next month. Users will be asked to download an app, which will then locate the closest available bike. The user keys in a four-digit code sent by the app, and they are then free to wheel it away. At their destination they need to find somewhere legal to leave it, flip the kickstand and just walk away.



What’s more, there is no time limit and the cost is reported to be just 50p a ride. In more advanced station-less bikes, GPS devices prevent them from going outside designated city areas, using what is called “geo-fencing” technology.



It’s no coincidence that Ofo has picked Cambridge. The company currently operates in 200 universities across China, including Beijing. It also enables registered users to share their own bikes in exchange for the unlimited use of any Ofo one. It said it has picked Cambridge because it sees it as the UK’s “city of cycling” with an “open and diversified environment”.



But will station-less, ride-anywhere schemes result in city-wide anarchy, with hundreds of bikes piling up at train stations in the evening, carelessly blocking doors and pedestrians, or lying vandalised down alleys or chucked in canals?



Antonia Roberts of Bike Plus, an umbrella group for Britain’s bike-sharing schemes, says she has seen plenty of photos of bike carnage near Chinese railway hubs. “These schemes are very controversial. There is a lot of ­investment from Chinese operators moving into the UK, and the finance coming into them is huge.

“They are the Uber of bikes. But there is not enough control or redistribution.­ You end up with huge pile-ups in ­stations, and they become a terrible eyesore. They are actively targeting the UK, with Ofo in Cambridge and Mobike thought to be looking at London, ­Manchester and Birmingham. They are saying that you don’t need any public money at all. It’s a game changer.”

In Cambridge, Al Storer of the ­Cambridge Cycling Campaign, (camcycle.org.uk) is unconvinced about Ofo’s approach. “From what I’ve seen of the bike spec, there is no way of locking them to anything – you can only lock the rear wheel. And there don’t appear to be any lights, which would limit their legal use. We definitely have concerns about it. There is a lot of pressure over space for parking bikes in Cambridge as it is.”

The best schemes

In the Netherlands 27% of all trips are already made by bike. Photograph: Tony Burns/Getty Images/Lonely Planet Image

This is probably a toss-up between Hangzhou in China and Dublin in Ireland, although Vienna’s and Washington DC’s schemes win plaudits, while the Netherlands wins on transport integration.

Hangzhou wins on sheer scale. The city has a population of 9 million – just a bit bigger than London – but has 78,000 bikes compared to London’s 11,500, with plans to expand the network to 175,000. In terms of “fleet size”, 17 of the world’s top 20 schemes are in China (Paris, London and Barcelona squeeze in towards the bottom).



What makes these schemes hugely successful is not just density of bikes but also price: in most Chinese cities users make a refundable deposit, after that bike usage is free for half an hour.

Dublin wins on intensity of use. Its 1,500 bikes were used 4.4m times in 2016, about four times as much as in London where the 11,500 bikes were used 10.3m times last year.



Geographer and bike data mapper Oliver O’Brien, a researcher at UCL, says that while London is dominated by a “single pulse” of usage (getting into work and then leaving to go home), Dublin appears to have a second pulse, with heavy lunchtime usage. It also helps that its scheme is one of the cheapest in the western world with an annual fee of just €25 (£21) compared to London’s £90.

But it is to the Netherlands, a country where 27% of all trips are already made by bike (it’s 1% in the US), that we must look for the most nationally integrated bike-sharing scheme.



OV-fiets runs out of almost all important train stations (with 300 locations across the country), with commuters able to pick up a bike from automatic dispensers or from a staffed rental location.



The idea is that while the Dutch use their bikes to cycle to a station, when they reach their destination they can hop on another for the last half-mile or so. The system is integrated into the national OV-chipkaart, which is much like the Oyster card in London.

Costs compared

Step aside London. It was once the highest-priced bike-sharing scheme in the world (by annual membership). But that dubious honour now goes to New York which, despite sponsorship from Citibank (and the fact it calls itself “an affordable way to get around town”) charges $163 (£131) for annual membership, and $12 (£9.60) for a day pass. New York’s scheme is, however, entirely privately funded, and indicates what London might have to charge without its public subsidy.

Apart from the Chinese cities, where costs are as little as 10p a ride (and some are effectively free), the best-value city schemes are those in Dublin and Madrid, both at just €25 a year (£21).



Most big European cities charge between a third and a half of the rate charged by London.



However, for occasional users and tourists the daily charge varies markedly. San Francisco and Copenhagen are very expensive, while Barcelona is a bargain at 62p. Except that the latter goes out of its way to make sure its scheme is for locals only, not visitors.



Most British schemes are at the top end of European pricing, though there are plans to introduce monthly passes to ease the financial pain.



Sebastian Schlebusch of Germany’s Nextbike, which runs bike-sharing schemes in Glasgow, Milton Keynes, Bath and Stirling, says it plans to introduce a monthly pass for £7-£8 which will be usable across any of its city schemes.

Meanwhile, Brighton, which launches its 430-bike scheme in June, is pioneering a pay-per-minute approach, charging 3p for each minute of use, though it will also offer a more traditional fare structure of £2 per trip or £8 per day, with an annual pass for £72.

The failures – and the feel-good figures

Seattle’s cycle hire scheme is closing after becoming insolvent. Photograph: George Rose/Getty Images

Seattle is to shut its Pronto scheme next month, less than three years after it launched. The 500 bikes have been used on average less than once a day, and even though Alaska Airlines put up $2.5m in sponsorship the scheme soon became insolvent, and the plug was pulled in January when city authorities­ refused to bail it out.



One major deterrent, which has also led Melbourne’s scheme to struggle, was a local law forcing cyclists to wear helmets. The scheme installed helmet dispensers in kiosks, but that wasn’t enough to save it. Spain has seen the biggest number of scheme casualties. Researcher Alberto Castro Fernandez of the Observatorio de la Bicicleta Pública estimates that of the 130 schemes that launched in Spain before 2010, 65 have closed, half of them shutting within three years of opening.



Many were lavishly funded by local authorities prior to the 2007-08 financial crisis and have not survived budget cuts. In smaller cities such as Segovia and Villarreal, bikes were being used as little as once a week, and then only briefly, compared to six times a day in Barcelona and Valencia.

Analysis shows that for schemes to work, bike stations need to be around 300m apart and docking spaces readily available – although one reason they fail is that cities can’t afford the high cost of constantly redistributing bikes



The good news is that these schemes do make us healthier, and cities less car clogged. The first national assessment of the UK’s schemes, published last month, found that 13% of users began cycling because of the scheme, while 37% increased the amount they cycled. It also encouraged more people to buy bikes. The survey also found that 47% of the trips taken by bikes were previously done on foot, 22% on buses, and 22% of the users were formerly travelling by car.



Bike-sharing schemes also encourage women to cycle. Generally only 25% of bicycle commuters in cities are female, but this rises to 42% with bike share schemes. The report concludes: “A majority of bike-share users report that they feel healthier, and a similar number also report feeling happier.”

Two on test

Patrick Collinson using the Dublin bike-share scheme. Photograph: The Guardian

One is much cheaper but covers a more limited area; the other more widespread – and far pricier. As a London cycle commuter who visits Dublin frequently I’m a member of the schemes in both cities, and can see the pros and cons of both, writes Patrick Collinson.

Dublin’s bike scheme is considered one of the world’s most successful, although any user knows it’s not just about the low cost. The city has possibly the worst public transport system of any European capital, with no underground network for its 1.3 million population, and just two tram lines that don’t connect with one other. Large numbers commute by car, leaving the city gridlocked during rush hour. It’s little surprise that residents hop on the bikes to cut a path through congested streets.



Cost

Dublin’s annual fee has gone up to €25 (£21) from €20 last year, and was only €10 at launch in 2009, which helps explain its massive popularity. London started at £45 then went to £90 – a price rise that produced a significant fall-off in usage. I know many people in London for whom £90 is just too much, and who would use the bikes far more if the fee came down, or if they could buy weekly or monthly membership at a lower cost.



The number of new annual subscribers in London fell from 17,000 to 4,000 after the rise, which should be a lesson to any city considering hiking fees.

Ease of access

London wins on this front, with the key release system fantastically easy to use. Dubliners have to wave a membership card at a machine, then press lots of buttons to release a bike.

The bikes

The bikes in both cities, like all share schemes worldwide, are heavy and unwieldy. Dublin’s (like those in Paris) come with a basket at the front, which I much prefer to London’s bungee-style cord which no doubt stops litter louts filling the racks with discarded coffee cups, but is a pain when you have some shopping. Dublin’s bikes suffer from a low seating position, with users much above 6ft unable to pull the seat high enough for comfortable cycling.

Docking stations

London is seemingly far superior at redistributing bikes between heavily used and under-used docking stations. Many times I’ve found myself queuing in Dublin with other frustrated cyclists hoping a space will become free.

The city cycling experience

Dublin is no rival to Copenhagen or Amsterdam when it comes to cycle-friendliness, with limited cycle-only lanes and, dare I say it, car drivers who are even more aggressive than Londoners. Neither city yet scores particularly highly on safety.