Bicycle parking station

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A bicycle parking station is a building or structure designed for use as a bicycle parking facility. Such a facility can be as simple as a lockable bike cage or shed or as complex as a purpose-built multi-level building: the common purpose is that they provide secure bicycle parking. Bicycle parking stations also go by names such as bike stations, bicycle centers and cycle centers, among many others.

Bicycle parking stations can offer additional facilities such as bicycle repairs, and customer facilities such as showers or lockers. Some are staffed while others are not. Some require users to join as members while others are on a per use basis or completely free of charge. Some are based at railway stations to facilitate "bike and ride" multi-modal transport, while others are situated at the end of the commute and as such are located in town or city centres, universities, and workplaces. Advanced bicycle parking station provide protection from weather, thieves and vandalism not only for the vehicle but also for the helmets and other personal belongings. In order to use less floor space, they store the vehicles vertically, either in a kind of towers or under the floor in shafts. It is important that the access time is short, even if several users want to store or transfer their bicycles at the same time.

Video Bicycle parking station

Operation

Bicycle parking stations are often operated by local governments or municipalities or they can be private businesses run by bike shops or non-profit bicycle advocacy organizations. More than half of them in the U.S. are operated (usually in partnership with a local business or nonprofit) by Bikestation. Some are fully automated.

Maps Bicycle parking station

Attributes

A bicycle parking station almost always has the following basic attributes:

indoor or sheltered bike parking, and
bicycle parking racks to lock bicycles to.

They can also additionally have any of the following.

Security: In terms of secure access to prevent theft or vandalism, a bike station could have:

on-site staff during the day,
a gate or door secured by key or by electronic card access.

Customer facilities: For the customer there may be additional services, such as:

lockers, changing rooms,
showers, bathrooms and toilets,
drinking fountains,
food and/or beverages, usually via vending machine
information available, such as pamphlets/brochures for bicycle safety, maps and other literature,e.g. about cycling routes or nearby points of interest. Some may even provide classes, e.g. bike maintenance or local area knowledge.

Bike services: Some bike stations (such as at many railway stations in the Netherlands) have staff who are able to carry out simple or complex repairs for a fee. This is very handy for commuters who can leave their bike there in the morning and pick it up fully repaired at the end of the day when on the way home. Regardless of whether repairs are available at a station or not, the station may also provide:

parts and accessories for sale
air pump for self-repair of flat tyres
bicycle rental.

Business models: As for pricing, bike stations can be completely free-of-charge, pay per use (usually a daily rate or per hour) or by membership/subscription only, or indeed by any other financial model. To reiterate, bicycle parking stations can be:

a user pays service: In this case stations cost money to use, either through daily, weekly, monthly payments or through periodic memberships (though sometimes non-members can pay for daytime locker use).
a free-of-charge service. In this case the bike stations are usually fully paid for by the local municipality, local regional government, or by the operating company (e.g. for bicycle parking stations located at railway stations)
anything in between: For example, some small charge may be required from the end-user (e.g. an administration charge) but the bulk of the operating costs are paid for by the municipality.

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