Today, Call a Bike launched its 6th program, this one in Karlsruhe, Germany. This bike-sharing program has a fleet of 350 bikes. With a phone number and unique bike number printed on every bike, folks can rent a Call a Bike via their mobile phone for 8 cents per minute, or at a lower 6 cents per minute rate with a special rail "BahnCard". This means a 30-minute ride on a Call a Bike costs between $1.80 and $2.40.

Rather than specific station locations where the bikes could be be picked up and returned, the bikes can be returned to any intersection in the center city and locked to a fixed object, like a bike rack or street sign post, with a strong cable lock that is built into the bike. This provides great flexibility as customers can get within feet of their destination with the public bikes.

The Deutsche Bahn source is in German, however, can be translated with AltaVista's Babelfish.

photo credit: Call a Bike