Project

Organic Bike Networks

If one considers true costs, bicycles are by far the most efficient form of transportation. We explore how individual actors in a city can collaborate asynchronously to create a city-wide bike-sharing network. At the core of this system is a bike that unlocks with your phone or RFID. The lock is designed as a kickstand, so that when users in the network shakes a bicycle in this network, the bicycle recognizes them, unlocks the bike for them, and allows them to ride, then charging for the time they spend before putting the kickstand down, thus re-engaging the lock. Such a system allows micro-entrepreneurs to keep adding bikes in the network in a peer-to-peer fashion, benefiting both the users and the providers.