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Jean-François Decaux
Chairman of the Executive Board, co-Chief Executive Officer
Jean-Charles Decaux
co-Chief Executive Officer


2007: self-service bicycles become the first individual public transport system


Always at the cutting edge of innovation and sustainable development, JCDecaux invented in 1999 a self-service bicycle hire system: Cyclocity®, a concept that was first registered in May 2001. The first-generation bicycle hire system was launched in June 2003 in the cities of Vienna (Austria), Gijon and Cordoba (Spain).

2004 saw the development of a new-generation bicycle. On May 19, 2005, a fleet of 1,000 bicycles was installed in Lyon and Villeurbanne, and immediately proved to be a major success with the local population. In 2007, a total of 3,000 – and, soon, 4,000 – bicycles are available for the inhabitants of Lyon, and are taken out by users between 20 and 30,000 times every day.

Since then, Cyclocity® has won over a large number of cities and is now available in Brussels (250 bicycles) and Aix-en-Provence (200). The cities of Mulhouse (200), Besançon (200), Marseille (1,000) and Seville (2,500) have also chosen this eco-friendly form of transport that promotes intermodal travelling solutions, eases traffic congestion, combats pollution and encourages city-dwellers to get more physical exercise. The self-service bicycle system is now an established fact and Paris, with Vélib’, is becoming the iconic showcase of this solution starting on July 15, 2007.

Indeed, Vélib’s Paris launch represents a crowning achievement for a system designed to fill an innovative market niche. By reinventing the use of the bicycle in an urban environment so that it forms an efficient extension to the use of other mass transit systems, JCDecaux is aiming to make self-service bicycle hire a fully-fledged form of individual public transport. By using advertising to finance the system (thereby guaranteeing its affordable price!), the Group is making this service universally accessible while simultaneously speeding up a change in social practices.

By the end of 2007, JCDecaux, No.1 worldwide for self-service bicycle hire, will be represented by Cyclocity® in more than 10 cities, offering more than 30,000 self-service bicycles in France, Belgium, Austria and Spain.

Self-service bicycles in the city are now an established fact; this new service represents a revolutionary change in the urban environment at the dawn of the 21st century.