randomness | Apparently Vélib (Paris) been having the same problems as Bixi (Montreal). (Reply)

At least, Gulliver, the Economist's travel blog, thinks so:

The Vélib—the city-wide system of rental bicycles—is superb. It got these two tourists, who would never otherwise have dreamed of pedal-power, cycling all over town. And town felt smaller and more intimate as a result.

But the Vélib is not quite as user-friendly as you might hope. We first-timers spent a lot of time faffing around, working out the payment system, worrying about our deposits, and failing to remove bikes from their stands. We also struggled to find Vélib stations with a free space where we could return our bikes, and ended up going quite far out of our way just to get rid of them.

Sounds like Bixi to me.

I hope they get some of these bugs out of the system by the time it reaches Boston next year.