On Jul 25, 10:00*pm, David Walters wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 19:14:49 +0100, Mizter T wrote:
When I was around town yesterday (on my bike no less) I noticed that a few
of the pay stations are already turned on and active - an example being the
one on Bernard Street opposite Russell Square tube station.

About 2 weeks ago I found one on Union Street in Southwark that thought
it had bikes for hire, according to it's neighbours, and was happy to
take my credit card as a casual user. I'm afraid I chickened out of
the transaction as I wasn't sure how I would be able to return the
non-existent bike.

You could have had a double first there - the first person to be
charged for the non-return of a bike, and the first to test out their
dispute resolution process too!

The one I played with briefly at Russell Square seemed to have the
self-awareness that it had no bikes for hire, and neither did any of
its neighbours. Which reminds me - the virtual 'button' that did catch
my eye was the 'this docking station is full, need more time to return
bike elsewhere' button (though it was rather better worded than that!)
- on pressing it, the pay station wanted either my membership key or
the payment card I'd used. But if this really works as it should then
that's great - one won't be penalised for going over the half-hour or
hour mark if the destination docking station is full.

I s'pose one needs to factor in the potential for the people in front
to be conducting some painfully slow transaction at the pay station,
though if it's already full of bikes then perhaps that would be a less
busy time anyway, and many (if not all?) of the pay stations seem to
have two 'faces' (on opposite sides of each other).