In message , at 11:07:28 on Thu,
24 Jun 2010, Theo Markettos
remarked:
I saw one in Lausanne recently, where a chap was assiduously filling up
empty racks from a trailer (I did wonder what the carbon efficiency of
that was in the event he drives a few miles to deliver just one bike...
but no doubt over time it works out.

Lausanne is built on a rather large hill.

And the metro stations are sloping. I tried to take a picture but it's
very difficult to capture the angles properly.

I imagine all the bikes drift to
the bottom, so some kind of rebalancing is required.

Theo
(who notes that the Lausanne metro has a special section for bikes, which
might help with the hill problem)

The man I saw was filling the racks just outside the Metro station at
the bottom of the hill (by the harbour)! Of course, they have such good
public transport, it makes you wonder why they also need a bike scheme.
--
Roland Perry