Taxi drivers and other critics said that it would never work, but three weeks after Paris was sprinkled with 10,000 self-service bicycles, the scheme is proving a triumph and a new pedalling army appears to be taming the city’s famously fierce traffic.

Bertrand Delanoë, the city’s mayor, and his green-minded administration are jubilant at the gusto with which Parisians and visitors have taken to the heavy grey cycles that have been available at 750 ranks since July 15.

Nowhere is the project being watched with greater interest than in London as the city prepares for London Freewheel day next month, when miles of roads will be car-free for the day. After witnessing first-hand the ease with which Parisians have taken to pedalling, Ken Livingstone, the Mayor, has asked Transport for London to develop a similar plan for London and bring together several smaller schemes across the city.

In Paris there have been few teething troubles with the high-tech system that supplies the bikes for up to €1 per half-hour — but one is a result of residents using them to glide downhill to work and then taking public transport home, resulting in gluts of bikes at some low-level stands and shortages at higher altitude stations, such as Montmartre.

Subscribers must pay €29 (£20) a year, give their credit card details and leave a €150 credit card deposit to join the Vélib scheme. This buys half an hour’s pedalling a day and a card to lock and unlock bicycles from automated stations spaced every 300 metres in the city’s centre.

Visitors to Paris can buy weekly or daily Vélib cards for €5 or €1. The giant fleet of Vélibs (short for free or freedom-bikes in French) is already showing signs of transforming a city which, despite increasing cycle lanes, had never been pedal-friendly. The real test will come with the end of summer and the return of bad weather and grumpy Parisians from holiday.

A number of free-bike schemes have been road-tested relatively successfully in London. OYbikes, co-founded by a former cabbie, Bernie Hanning, three years ago, lets cyclists hire a bike free for 30 minutes, after paying an initial £10 registration fee. Cyclists can phone the OYBike call centre to get the code to unlock the bike at locations including Hammersmith, Fulham and West Kensington. Another scheme in Tower Hamlets encourages employers with tax benefits to provide pooled bikes for staff.

Dave Holladay, a veteran cycling enthusiast who advises the CTC, the national cycling organisation, welcomed the move to introduce a large-scale bike scheme in London. “It takes no more than 15 minutes to get to any Central London terminus by bike, so there could be huge benefits for the city. I think TFL should look at what’s available as there is already a lot going on. In the case of OYbikes, it only takes ten minutes to erect one of their hiring points, so a project like that can be expanded very easily.”

However, he added that one of the main reasons that similar schemes had failed in England, for example in Southampton and Bristol, is because of a lack of co-operation from the rail networks, who have objected to providing parking space near stations.

Parisians, meanwhile, appear to be enjoying their new found pedal power. In the first three weeks of the world’s biggest bike rental scheme, the 22kg (48lb) machines were borrowed 1.2 million times. Each is being used six times a day on average, usually for the short trips that are encouraged by the pricing scheme.

New patterns are forming, with arriving commuters stripping the stands at railway stations. To ensure a morning ride, some have taken — illegally — to securing bikes at night with their own locks. J. C. Decaux, the company that provides and services the bikes at no charge in return for rights to the city’s advertising space, is also seeking ways to counter theft and damage after 50 were torn from their moorings and 180 vandalised in the first weeks of the scheme.

The successes . . . and failures

Copenhagen Prototype scheme, with advertising sponsorship – bicycles have tyres that do not puncture
Lyon 1,500 bicycles available for 15,000 users. Costs 30p for 30 minutes
Germany Some glitches with GPS system
St Andrews Bikes were stolen in the Scottish university town in an early pilot scheme
Cambridge When a pilot scheme started in the 1960s, the fleet slowly vanished. When it was resurrected in 1993, all 300 bicycles were stolen on the first day

Pedal power

15 extra free minutes are granted if a rider’s destination station is already full of bikes

48% increase in bicycle use in Paris since 2001

27 milesof these were built in 2006

14 minimum age to join the scheme

1,451 collection points by the end of the year

230 miles of cycle paths in the city

Source: www.velib.paris.fr

Times Recommends

• Times Charity Appeal: SolarAid
• Is it Black Monday all over again for Dubai?
• Behind the scenes at the biggest deal