Imagine, you are visiting a foreign city and have decided to explore it by bicycle. After a museum stop you find the bicycle rack overflowing and since your bicycle was rented – you could not really distinguish your bicycle from the pool. Wouldn’t it be great to have a positioning system to identify the location and guiding you back to the bicycle for the time you have rented it?
A solution could be provided by smart bicycle sharing systems sending location data to the bicycle renter as well as to the rental company. As a result, the location of the bicycle can always be tracked making it easier to find it for further use or transfer back.
What is the benefit of doing this with NarrowBand-IoT (NB-IoT)? The main benefits are low device costs, ultra-low power consumption and extended coverage, enabling the installation of a cost-efficient, long-lasting system with low maintenance effort – also in rural areas.
Smart bicycle sharing systems via NB-IoT is still a vision of the future, but might help someday simplifying and improving rental processes.