Paris' Velib system found that people didn't like riding up some of the steeper hills:
"See, Paris has a handful of steep hills. The Montmartre neighborhood, for example, is perched at the top of a rise some 450 feet above the Seine. Taking a bike down the hill has a certain obvious appeal, but riding back up to the top... not so much."
"Over the summer, though, the good people of Vélib added a simple behavioral incentive to the system: Return your bike to one of 100 stations perched over 60 meters above the rest of the city, and 15 minutes of free riding is added to your account."
I think it's neat they managed to put some game mechanics in to the pricing model to encourage users to make the whole system work better for other users.
"See, Paris has a handful of steep hills. The Montmartre neighborhood, for example, is perched at the top of a rise some 450 feet above the Seine. Taking a bike down the hill has a certain obvious appeal, but riding back up to the top... not so much."
"Over the summer, though, the good people of Vélib added a simple behavioral incentive to the system: Return your bike to one of 100 stations perched over 60 meters above the rest of the city, and 15 minutes of free riding is added to your account."
http://globalmoxie.com/blog/velib-bonus~print.shtml
I think it's neat they managed to put some game mechanics in to the pricing model to encourage users to make the whole system work better for other users.