Nowadays, when there are talks about expanding Dublin Bikes scheme, ie allocating money for this end (for the plan has not been finalised, the council is still negotiating the terms with the operator, JCDecaux, as can be read in Cycling In Dublin), it's a great opportunity to pay a tribute to the people who make Dublin Bikes happen.
Bicycle sharing systems are a brilliant idea. They help to put more people on bike and thus make the roads safer and the air cleaner. However, some stations are more popular than others, there are cold spots people want to leave (say, home in morning) and hot spots people want to get to (say, work in morning). This deficiency, a market failure (to borrow from economics), poses a problem. When one needs bicycle most, the docks are more likely to be empty while at the same time, dropping off the bike can be nightmarish when all stations are full. If this happens very often, people are not likely to rely on this scheme.
Here comes our friend, the Dublin Bikes distributor, who, like Robin Hood (or Dennis Moore), takes from the rich (stations) and gives to the poor (stations). I came across this guy many times and I found it fascinating that he is always on the phone while doing his job slowly. It's not a complaint (moving bicycles from one place to another can be awfully dull, as dull as charted accountancy), just an observation.
In this occasion, I met the bike distributor in Exchequer Street on 7 January 2013. I also shot a photo with his vehicle from a different angle:
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