I'd heard sometime ago that there was an interesting bicycle rental system in Paris, and had hoped to give it a try sometime. I got to do just that today! The interesting rental system that I'm refering to is 'Velib' (http://en.velib.paris.fr/How-it-works/Bikes). The company behind it must have done extensive research on commuting habits of people, before coming up with their business model, which works like this: Subscription types are long-term (annual), weekly or single day tickets. (I'll describe how a single day ticket works) A single day ticket can be purchased after paying a 150 EUR deposit, and a 1.7 EUR charge. This ticket is valid for 24 hours. You get a special number on the top of the ticket, and get to create a 'PIN'. All this can be done at any Velib bike station, of which there are many, all across Paris (across France?) If there is a bike available at the station, you can then borrow it, or use the system there to query other stations to find the station nearest to you, with available bikes.

A bike, once borrowed, may be used for upto 30 minutes, without any additional charge.  If you have travel from Point A to Point B, and say it takes longer than 30 minutes, you can find a bike station between points A and B and return the bike, and either borrow the same bike again, or another one, if available, after a two minute 'cool off' period, and get another free 30 minute borrowing window. You can do as many of these return and borrow transactions per day as you can accomplish, without any extra charges. If you should hold on to the bike for longer than 30 minutes at any given point, there will be additional charges.  This 30 minute borrowing window ensures the following.

1. People will not want to hold on to a bike longer than strictly necessary.
2. Bikes get distributed across the city constantly.
3. Instead of users locking up a bike outside a shop or supermarket, for instance, they'll return the bike to the bike station, where it'll be available for somebody else to use, while the user is otherwise occupied. This ensures better availability of bikes, thanks to faster and more turnarounds.

If a user wants to use it for tourism instead, and doesn't want to be bothered with the hassle of doing the return-borrow rotations every half hour, he/she can do so by paying 1 EUR for the first extra half hour, 2 EUR for second extra half hour and 4 EUR per all subsequent half hour periods. I tried it a bunch of times, and once ended up paying an extra euro as I took a minute longer (and didn't realize it). I guess the system is more tuned towards commuter usage than tourist usage, but a very nice system, nevertheless. I'd love to see a system like this being implemented in India.

A Velib bike station, one of many.

A closer look at a Velib bike. Very rugged and sturdy.

Once authorized, you simply push the button to unlock the bike. When returning, you need to wait for the light to flash green twice, to know that it's been securely locked again.