There are already several compelling examples of bike hire maps and visualizations around, such as the London Bike Grid, the , the detailed , or the various iPhone apps that allow uses to discover the most convenient available bikes close in the vicinity.

Here, [oobrien.com] stands out because it offers a real-time map view on almost all cities around the world that offer bike hire schemes, ranging from over to . Unfortunately, it seems (too) many bike hire schemes, in spite of being publicly funded, still close up and protect their data, making only historical views on usage patterns possible.

A more detailed analysis of these data sets can be found .