1. Introduction The bicycle is often called the “two wheeled green engine” and it is regaining popularity these days because of the benefits from cycling. Compared to driving motor vehicles, cycling has numerous benefits including exercise, reduced traffic congestion, less noise pollution, easier and less costly parking, and lower user as well as social costs . Korea is also becoming a more bicycle friendly country. Since being more environment-responsible has became an important issue, the Korean government is taking steps to rejuvenate the domestic bicycle industry. The government is also promoting this environment-friendly mode of transportation by encouraging people to use bikes for both leisure and transportation purposes as part of its green growth strategy. Currently, only about 1.2 per cent of Koreans use bicycles as a means of transportation-compared to 14 per cent in Japan and 27 per cent in the Netherlands. The Korean central government and local administrations are announcing policies that will encourage people to use bikes and thus to increase this number. The Ministry of Public Administration and Security announced that it will complete a 3,114 km bicycle path network across the country by 2018. To make way for bicycle paths, a so-called “road diet” program will be introduced which will reduce the number of lanes for cars on major roads. A subway car for cyclists-only has also been proposed for the convenience and safety of riders. The government and several insurance companies already introduced bicycle insurance to cover bicycle accidents. The government also plans to establish a nationwide system that will make quality public bicycles available to riders of all ages. Several local governments are launching projects so that bicycles become a part of everyday life. Public Bicycle System(PBS) programs1) have been introduced in the cities of Changwon, Daejeon, Goyang, with the programs receiving increasing attention in many other cities with initiatives to increase bike usage and to lessen the environmental impacts of transportation. The purpose of this article is to briefly describe the history and development of bicycle sharing programs, review experiences of selected public bicycle systems, and develop guidelines for a successful public bicycle system in Korea. 2. Understanding Public Bicycle System (1) How it works A public bicycle system(PBS) is a way of providing alternative personal transportation in an urban setting. A bicycle user, either member or non-member of a PBS program, checks out a bike from one of many bike stations, rides to his/her destination, and returns it to another bike station nearby Figure 1 .2) There are many ways to provide PBS program but it can be loosely categorized into one of three following types. 1) Unregulated Bicycle Sharing In this type of program, bicycles are simply released into a given area. In some cases, such as a university campus, the bicycles are only designated for use within certain boundaries. Users are expected to leave the bike unlocked in a public area once they reach their destination. The drawback of this type 1) It is also also known as Bicycle sharing program, Community Bike System, Smart-bike, Yellow Bicycle programs, White Bicycle program etc. 2) Some bike-sharing model requires bikes to be returned at the same location from where they were checked out. of program is that there is little protection against theft and vandalism and thus some earlier programs were abandoned. 2) Deposit A small cash deposit releases the bike from a locked terminal and can only be retrieved by returning it to another just like shopping cart system in major large scale mart in Korea. Since the deposit (usually one or more coins) is a fraction of the bike’s cost, this does little to deter theft. 3) Membership Current PBS programs, in general, require a user to become a member. Most of the systems have bicycles available at unattended urban locations. In this version of the program, bicycles are usually kept either at volunteer-run hubs (bike stations) or at self-service terminals and are operated as unmanned system. Individuals registered with the program identify themselves with their 2 Server Receives Visa Deposit and Member ID 4 Bicycle User and Logs User Racks and Locks Bicycle. Bike Station Bike Station 2 Logs Return, Returns Deposit Minus Rental Bike Station 1 Fee 3 Bicycle User Selects Bike and Rides to Final Destination 1 Bicycle User Selects Bike and Swipes Credit Card 5 Services and Rebalances or Enters Membership PIN Bikes Beteen Stations Into Bike Station Reader Each Evening Source : Author modified the original flowchart from Neobikes(www.neobikes.com). membership card(or a smart card, via cell phone) at any of the bike stations to reserve or check out a bicycle. The individual is responsible for the bike until it is returned to another bike station. With the help of information technology(IT) advance, the PBS has gone much further. Some bike stations are solar-powered, with no emissions or unclean sources of energy. RFID(Radio Frequency Identification) wireless communication is used, eliminating negative environmental effects resulting from excavations as well as those associated with the manufacturing of massive amounts of communication cables. Sometimes known as Bike Library models, these bicycles may be given free of charge, for a refundable deposit, or sold at a reduced price. They are assigned to one person who will typically keep the bike for months or years and lock it between uses. (2) History of PBS With the successful launch of the Paris’ public bicycle system, Velib,、 interest in public bicycle systems has increased and the growth of bike-sharing programs in the past few years has been explosive. But in fact, the PBS program existed a long time ago and there have been various types of PBS programs over the past 40 years.3) The earliest public bicycle program was introduced in the 1960s in Amsterdam. This program was called the “White Bicycle Plan” as the bicycles used in this program were white. In 1974, the French city of La Rochelle launched a free bike program featuring yellow bicycles that were free to use. In 1994, the Yellow Bike Project in Portland, Oregon, took the approach of simply releasing a number of bicycles to the streets for unrestricted use. These programs provided free bicycles that were supposed to be used for one trip and then left for someone else. 3) For more detailed history of PBS system, see Paul DeMaio (2008), “The Bike-sharing Phenomenon - The History of Bike-sharing”, Carbursters #36, p. 12.; Wikipedia’s “Bicycle sharing system” article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_sharing_system). But the earlier PBS programs looked successful in public but proved unsustainable initially due to theft and vandalism of the bicycles. So the programs in other cities were later revised to operate under a more restrictive system. Since then, many community projects around the country have attempted similar models and met with varying degrees of success. In 1995, City Bikes in Copenhagen was launched with many improvements over the previous PBS programs. This program used specially designed bikes with parts that could not be used on other bikes. The bikes could be picked up and returned at specific locations and are allowed unlimited use of a bike throughout the city center with a refundable deposit. BikeShare, which was operated by the Community Bicycle Network(CBN) in Toronto from 2001 to 2006, was designed to attempt to overcome some of the theft issues by requiring yearly memberships to sign out. But these bikes still experienced theft due to the anonymity of the customer. The major failing of such secure community bike programs was that it required a more of an administration, but could only charge users a portion of the overall costs. Other bike sharing systems evolved to reduce the operating overhead as well as find other sources of funding. The scheme is funded by commercial sponsors. In return, the bikes carry advertisements, which appear on the bike frame and the solid-disk type wheels. The next innovation was to use smart cards. Bikeabout, launched in 1996 by Portsmouth, UK, included cards with magnetic stripes that the students would swipe to sign out a bike. A similar system was set up in Rotterdam. They were not particularly successful, as the number of stations and operating times was seriously limited. The launch of Velo’v、 in Lyon, France turned out to be a turning point. A bike unfriendly city of Lyon saw an increase of 500% in bicycle trips, a quarter of which were due to the bike sharing system. Velo’v、 introduced a number of innovations that were later copied by Velib’、 and most other systems, including electronic locks, smart cards, telecommunication systems and on board computers. In some German cities, the national rail company, Deutsche Bahn, offers a convenient bike rental service: “Call a Bike”. The Call a Bike principle is very simple. After initial online registration, a potential user can phone a number printed on the bike. He then receives a number code that opens the lock. If desired, billing can be done directly to the users mobile phone account. (3) Management Type Earlier PBS programs were usually undertaken by community groups, local governments, or public agencies. Now it is common that the program is undertaken by public-private partnerships with a membership rental schemes. Many of the membership programs are being operated through public-private partnerships. Several European cities, including the French cities of Lyon and Paris as well as London, Barcelona and Stockholm, have signed contracts with private advertising agencies(JCDecaux in Lyon and Paris, Clear Channel in Barcelona) that supply the city with thousands of bicycles free of charge(or for a minor fee).