FOR months, particularly weekends, the West Lake is filled with tourists riding the orange-red public bicycles amid the greenery, a pleasant sight in itself. Tourists on bicycles also take to downtown areas and shopping districts.

In addition to helping tourists go sightseeing, public bicycles have gradually become daily transport for many residents like Li Meng.

According to Lu Zhihong, deputy general manager of Hangzhou Public Transport Corp, each bicycle was hired for 0.93 times on average each day in the first few months of operation in 2008.

The usage rose to 3.27 times in February and about five times in March. In April, the city added 2,400 bicycles to 11 new service outlets, making the total 16,000 bikes in 640 service outlets.

Observing the results, the Hangzhou municipal government cherishes a greater ambition.

"The public traffic department must work with the city administration and city planning departments to expand the scale to 20,000 bicycles in 800 service outlets by early May," says the Hangzhou Party Secretary Wang Guoping.

"Our ultimate objective with the public bicycle scheme is not to solve the 'final-kilometer puzzle,' but the last 100 meters for the people boarding our public transport mix of Metro, buses, boats, taxis and public bicycles," says Wang.

Under Hangzhou's plan, there will be 2,000 service outlets with 50,000 bicycles for rent by the end of the year. There will be one service outlet every 100 meters downtown.

"Public bicycle outlets will become as popular as public telephone booths along streets. In the future, residents will largely ride bicycles to go shopping in food markets and supermarkets, or to go to the office," says Lu.

Improvement

Experts say the acceptance of public bicycles in Hangzhou is closely associated with the city scale and scenery.

"Hangzhou is far smaller in downtown size and population than Beijing and Shanghai. This makes it feasible and realistic for people to ride bicycles. People are also willing to ride bicycles in this scenic city of rich cultural relics and with a pleasant climate," says Gong Weibin, professor at the National School of Administration.

The idea of a bicycle renting was borrowed from Paris.

In April 2008, HPTC and Hangzhou Public Transport Advertising Co Ltd jointly invested 5 million yuan (US$732,838) to set up a fully state-owned Hangzhou Public Bicycle Transport Service Development Co Ltd. HPBTSD is responsible for buying bicycles, setting out service outlets, and employing staff. It independently developed the country's first information management system for public bicycle leasing and bicycle locking apparatus.

Over the past year, HPBTSD has made three major updates to improve its performance, according to demands and proposals from residents and tourists, says Tao Xuejun, deputy general manager of HPBTSD.

The issues include such problems as hard-to-find bicycles in morning rush hours and hard-to-find outlets to return bikes near destinations.

"We have simplified the mode of hiring and returning bicycles," says Tao, citing one example of convenience.

When the service started last May, Tao says, users hired bikes by swiping their IC cards or Hangzhou citizen cards at POS machines at service outlets, with the help of service staff. The POS machines took in 200-yuan deposits. Users again swiped their cards at POS machines, with staff assistance, when they returned bikes. The deposits were fully returned.

Since last July, HPBTSD simplified the procedure. A POS machine is built into bikes, instead of being kept at outlets. Users swipe cards by themselves to rent bikes. When they return bicycles, they simply push the bicycles into the stands, lock them and again swipe the cards, to get everything done.

"Our leasing system is more convenient than those in Europe," says Lu Zhihong. "The leasing system in Paris works with the banking system. It takes about five minutes to hire and return a bicycle. Ours takes less than one minute."

On April 1, HPBTSD extended service hours, from the original 6:30am to 8pm to 6am to 9pm and added more 24-hour service outlets. From May 1, the city has added seven 24-hour outlets to the previous eight.

So far, no public bicycles have been stolen, according to Lu, deputy general manager of Hangzhou Public Transport Corp. Only about 0.5 percent of the bikes were slightly damaged over a year.

"This is partly due to advanced facilities guarding against thefts. Strict management is crucial," says Lu.

People who do not return bicycles or report a bike lost within 24 hours will be charged 10 yuan each day, deducted from the deposit, in addition to regular fees that would be collected. These users and their IC cards will be put on a blacklist and residents will be unable to rent public bikes for life.

Huang Zhiyao, general manager of Hangzhou Public Transport Corp, says, "As a government-run public service, we cannot operate the service fully in line with market rules. The government needs to play a role in the process."

But apparently, government funding is not enough to maintain the bicycles and pay salaries to staff. Rental fees are insufficient to support long-term operation.

According to Tao from HPBTSD, more than 80 percent of the bicycles have been used for free (the first hour is free) since last May. The fees, about 200,000-300,000 yuan each month, are totally inadequate compared with the cost of 1.5 million yuan to run the project per month.

"We have found out a way to make money - put adverts on the bicycles and public bicycle service outlets," says Tao.

"As we keep expanding our service outlets, we will have more resources to tap. We are highly likely to balance incomes and expenses in the long run."

Besides, Hangzhou plans to set up a public bicycle technology development company, to protect and promote its technologies from the public bicycle service - such as card-swiping technology, storage racks, locks and so on.

To date, Beijing and Shanghai, together with Zhengzhou (Henan Province), Jinan (Shandong), Wuhan (Hubei), Changzhou (Jiangsu) and Sanya (Hainan) are stepping up efforts to build their own public bicycle systems in response to rising energy prices, pollution problems and traffic jams.

"Chinese cities are improving their management capacities. Many places have similar conditions to ours to promote the public bicycle service," says Huang Zhiyao. "This creates a good business opportunity for us."