The First Bicycle Sharing Scheme

In the mid 1960s a Dutch engineer called Luud Schimmelpennink came up with a scheme to share bikes, and cut pollution. He collected about ten old bicycles, painted them white and left them at different points around Amsterdam. Luud has been speaking to Janet Ball about why that first scheme didn't last, and how he went on to invent an early computerised car-sharing scheme as well.

Photo: Activists with one of the original white bikes from the first scheme. Credit: Luud Schimmelpennink.