Hangzhou Public Bicycle Service

The Hangzhou Public Bicycle System was trialed from May to October, then officially opened on October 1, 2008. Currently there are 350 stations and 10 000 bicycles with the goal of 2 000 stations and 15 000 bicycles. Future plans are to extend the business hours by an hour from 6h30 20h00 to 6h00 21h00. There will be an extra halfhour to return the bicycles after 21h00.They have also added five 24hour service stations, making a total of eight 24hour service stations by the end of this year (2009). There is a registered 56 000 trips per day but the average is 40 000 trips per day with 80% of the people using the bicycle for less than 1 hour, which is free of charge. The goal of the system, according to the government, was to act as a feeder system to the buses. The initial rollout of the project was around Westlake, a popular tourist destination. It then moved to the business district and then into the communities.