Vienna, Austria has had a system based on the same technology for a few more years than Paris, albeit on a much smaller scale (600 bikes vs. 20,600). The bikes are much more rugged here: They're single-gear and have solid rubber tires -- surely less comfortable, but also much easier to maintain.

In either city, to rent one you need to provide a debit or credit card -- so I don't quite get how they can be incurring such high losses from lost/stolen bikes. Wikipedia says "The credit/debit card will be charged €150 if a rented bike is not returned" in Paris. In Vienna, you'll receive a €600 bill.

A previous attempt in Vienna with an anonymous system where you just had to deposit a €2 coin to unlock the bike failed miserably: Hundreds were stolen within the first week.

Covering the cost of stolen bikes seems to be common sense, so charging €150 for a €500 bike seems nuts to me. But then I'm surprised at the amount of thefts anyway, considering law enforcement ought to be able to track you down based on credit card data. Don't tell me people actually steal credit cards just to steal a funny-looking bike with presumably zero resale value.

On the other hand, all of that presumably wouldn't solve the vandalism problem: you don't have to put in your credit card before you destroy a bike. I've never attempted to vandalise a rentable bike in Vienna, but they don't look THAT sturdy. I suspect the people who vandalised bikes at my school would've had no trouble. Which leaves me to conclude what the article hints at: it must be a social/cultural problem.

The BBC article is much more interesting: Each bike travels 10,000 km a year, so they have to be sturdy (and expensive).

this is an interesting social problem: how to get people to care about shared property. finding a successful solution here is not so different to finding a successfully scaled social news aggregator.