Bike sharing (White Bicycle Plan)
Bicicletas compartidas (Plan de las Bicicletas Blancas)
- Date
- 1965 · confidence high
- Place
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Credited to
- Provo (Luud Schimmelpennink)
- Field
- Movement
What it is
An initiative by the Provo group to leave 50 white-painted, unlocked bicycles for everyone to use on Amsterdam's streets. The experiment failed within days because of thefts, but it is the origin of public bike-sharing systems.
Schimmelpennink revived the plan as the electric 'Witkar' in 1974. Modern fourth-generation systems add GPS, apps and dockless bikes.
What it led to
- docked and deposit systems, such as Copenhagen's Bycyklen (1995) and Lyon's Vélo'v (2005)
- large public networks such as Hangzhou (2008), Paris and Mexico City