User:AKF1986/CityRyde

CityRyde is a bike-sharing consulting and software development company located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

History
After a visit to Paris during which Timothy Ericson and Jason Meinzer witnessed the launch of Vélib', the world’s largest bike share, the two returned to the United States with the idea of bringing the same concept to American cities. Although the initial idea was to create a bike-sharing program in the Philadelphia region, CityRyde evolved into a different role, eventually establishing itself as a software provider, consultant and expert in in the industry.

Products
In September 2009, CityRyde launched Spark, billed as the world’s first off-the-shelf bike-sharing fleet management software, at the University of Chicago. Spark's features include electronic user registration, automated rental processes, integration with automated locking mechanisms, a customized reporting dashboard, and the ability to integrate with existing systems. In September 2010, CityRyde released a mobile app for Android called Ride off Carbon, which allows commuters who walk or ride bicycles to monitor their carbon footprints and calculate the carbon reductions they achieve through sustainable means of transportation. Ride off Carbon has a database of more than 21,000 cars; users can select their make and model in order to track precisely how much carbon they save by avoiding fossil fuel transportation.

Due for release in 2011 is Inspire, a software package that certifies and monetizes carbon offset credits to generate additional revenue for bike-sharing systems, which have traditionally struggled in that regard. Inspire integrates with existing systems to retrieve bicycle usage data and calculate carbon savings using the proprietary algorithms of CityRyde’s carbon methodology, which is expected to be approved in the spring of 2011 by the Voluntary Carbon Standard.