A visualisation of docking station states for around 50 cities with bicycle-sharing systems (similar to London’s Barclays Cycle Hire) across the world. Each circle, representing a docking station, moves from blue to red as the docking station fills up with bikes. The area of the circle represents the total size of the docking station. AJAX is used to load in the latest information every few minutes. The visualisation allows overall usage patterns to be seen during the day – the patterns being different for each city. An animation mode replays the last 48 hours, allowing commuter flows and other distinctive characteristics to be spotted. Various different colour schemes are available.
The background map is a custom render of OpenStreetMap data. It is designed to show relevant contextual information without distracting from the featured data.
Bike Share Map has been retweeted over 5000 times and derivatives of it have featured in magazines and newspapers including National Geographic Magazine (US June 2012 edition).
The map can be viewed at http://bikes.oobrien.com/. The above map is showing the bicycle-sharing system in Valencia, Spain.