Bicycle parking station

A bicycle parking station is a building or structure designed for use as a bicycle parking facility. Such a facility can be as simple as a lockable bike cage or shed or as complex as a purpose-built multi-level building: the common purpose is that they provide secure bicycle parking. Bicycle parking stations also go by names such as bike stations, bicycle centers and cycle centers, among many others.

Bicycle parking stations can offer additional facilities such as bicycle repairs, and customer facilities such as showers or lockers. Some are staffed while others are not. Some require users to join as members while others are on a per use basis or completely free of charge. Some are based at railway stations to facilitate "bike and ride" multi-modal transport, while others are situated at the end of the commute and as such are located in town or city centres, universities, and workplaces. Advanced bicycle parking station provide protection from weather, thieves and vandalism not only for the vehicle but also for the helmets and other personal belongings. In order to use less floor space, they store the vehicles vertically, either in a kind of towers or under the floor in shafts. It is important that the access time is short, even if several users want to store or transfer their bicycles at the same time.

Bicycle parking stations are often operated by local governments or municipalities or they can be private businesses run by bike shops or non-profit bicycle advocacy organizations. More than half of them in the U.S. are operated (usually in partnership with a local business or nonprofit) by Bikestation. Some are fully automated.

A bicycle parking station almost always has the following basic attributes:

They can also additionally have any of the following.

Security: In terms of secure access to prevent theft or vandalism, a bike station could have:

Customer facilities: For the customer there may be additional services, such as:

Bike services: Some bike stations (such as at many railway stations in the Netherlands) have staff who are able to carry out simple or complex repairs for a fee. This is very handy for commuters who can leave their bike there in the morning and pick it up fully repaired at the end of the day when on the way home. Regardless of whether repairs are available at a station or not, the station may also provide:

Business models: As for pricing, bike stations can be completely free-of-charge, pay per use (usually a daily rate or per hour) or by membership/subscription only, or indeed by any other financial model. To reiterate, bicycle parking stations can be:

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