A Japanese steel engineering company has come up with an ingenious way of securely storing hundreds and even thousands of bikes! The Bike Tree is a fully mechanized locker system that electronically tags the bicycle and takes it via a conveyor belt to a internal storage area.
When it is time to collect a bicycle, the owner swipes a card through a reader which located at the entrance and the bicycle is returned via the same automated system, taking between 15 seconds and one minute to retrieve depending on the capacity of the storage area.
The Bike Tree, now in operation in various train stations in Tokyo, can store between 600 and 6,000 bicycles. And the cost to the user? Roughly ¥1,800 (£13.50) for a secure monthly bicycle parking spot with additional discounts for students.
