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Eighteen months after its launch, Harbourton's public bike scheme has become part of everyday life in the city centre. Six hundred bright green bikes are available from forty-five docking stations, and according to the city's transport office, they've been used for just over a million journeys.

The idea is straightforward. You unlock a bike with a card or your phone, ride for up to thirty minutes for one pound, and leave it at any station. Regular users can pay sixty pounds for a year's membership instead.

At the main railway station this morning, the racks were almost empty by half past eight. Amira, a hospital nurse, told me the scheme had cut her journey to work from forty minutes on the bus to fifteen by bike. She admitted she'd been sceptical at first, mainly because she hadn't ridden a bike since she was a child.

Not everyone was convinced from the start. When the docking stations went in, several shop owners on Market Street worried that losing parking spaces would keep customers away. Those concerns haven't entirely disappeared, but one café owner I spoke to conceded that weekday mornings are noticeably busier than they used to be.

The scheme's biggest headache, though, is geography. Harbourton is built on a steep hill, and riders are happy to cycle down to the harbour in the morning, but far fewer choose to ride back up in the evening. As a result, vans spend much of the day carrying bikes back to the upper stations, which adds considerably to running costs.

The city's answer is to add two hundred electric bikes next spring, aimed especially at the hillside neighbourhoods. Whether that will be enough to balance the system remains to be seen. For now, though, the green bikes look as if they're here to stay. Nadia Price, City Matters, Harbourton.