Flexibility helped Taipei's bike-share scheme pedal past 10m rental mark

Taipei's public bike-sharing programme recently hit a milestone - 10 million rentals. "We have made it," said a smiling Mayor Hau Lung-bin at a ceremony marking the occasion last week.

Although a few problems continue to dog the YouBike system, the system has come a long way. When launched in 2009, the programme saw an average of one rental a day; the daily figure now exceeds 60,000.

The bikes seem to be everywhere - indeed the cheery yellow rear-wheel splashguards sporting the smiling YouBike green logo are nearly impossible to miss.

The programme has flourished in part because its operator, Taiwan's Giant Manufacturing, who agreed to build and run the programme for the city, has responded to criticism and suggestions from the public and the municipal authorities.

For instance, signing up has become simpler. People initially needed to produce two pieces of identification to register and were thrown into a compulsory annual membership system. That discouraged a key selling point of the service - unplanned, sudden rides.

Now people sign up using their mobile phones at the kiosks where the bikes are stored, and pay with their EasyCard, Taipei's popular stored-value smartcard. So far, one million people - nearly 40 per cent of the city's 2.7 million residents - have registered. The process is the same for tourists and one-time users.

The operator has also responded to calls to spread the service more widely around the city, and offer more bikes. The initial 11 kiosks with a total of 500 bicycles has mushroomed into 129 kiosks holding more than 4,100 bicycles.