Sir, – It is apparent that a major cohort of users of the bikes are employees of technology multinationals in Dublin.
This uptake is a contributing factor to your columnist arriving at a bike station to find no bicycle was available (Una Mullally, "Dublin bikes scheme hits the brakes", Opinion & Analysis, August 22nd).
Of course, there are several mobile apps available that would tell your correspondent as to when and where Dublin Bikes were available and prevent such an unhappy customer experience.
However, given the usage profile of Dublin Bikes in my research area, perhaps the solution is as easy as falling off a bike.
Google, Facebook, or another such benefactor, might step in and fund the scheme either partly, or in total.
Indeed, the matter could even present a valuable user experience research opportunity for such companies in its own right.
They might, as Flann O’Brien would say, even be “flabbergasted at the number of bicycles that are half-human almost half-man, half-partaking of humanity”.
What a win-win situation. – Yours, etc,
ULTAN Ó BROIN,
Dublin 8.