Bicycle permits and management

Does anyone have any ideas for how to effectively tag, track and manage bicycles on the property?

We have purchased stickers with letters/numbers that we plan to put on the bicycles to track them somehow.

Just looking for great ideas for how to get residents to register/receive the sticker and then how to track them.

Any ideas for what to do with unclaimed/unknown/old bicycles?

Thanks!

I would LOVE to hear feedback on this... We have an overflow of bikes, some of which have been rusty and broken for years (but still chained to the racks). We recently purchased a new, larger, rack. When we install it, we plan to send a notice to everyone that says all bikes have to be moved to the new rack, and any left on the old rack after x days will be thrown out. We also wanted to add a tracking system for the bikes, so we can monitor if someone moves out and leaves their bike, we can get rid of it. Not sure the best way to implement it would be, so I'd love to hear ideas!!

Kathleen,

This is one of those age old deals where there will be many ideas and none are 100% perfect. Mine is how do we reduce the abandoned and unclaimed bikes. I have seen it done a couple of ways.

I have seen it where the community, put out notices of bikes they have which are not known who the owners are. Modes of notice are community bulletin boards, emails, and news letters. Bikes unclaimed by such and such date will be considered abandoned and the bikes then given to some charity organization for thier use.

I have seen where the local police have a biking safety rodeo on property and at the same time give parents a way to register the bikes in case of theft. The community, then maintained a list.

Then there was one community that worked out a deal with a local bike shop to do safety inspections of bikes and in turn if community used their services they received a discount and it was recorded who the bikes belong to as well.

That is all that I know. I have never seen anyone go out and get stickers for tracking the bikes. Not to say it is not another idea though.

For the old bikes, look into an organization called Bikes for the World. They will take the old bikes and refurbish them to distribute to those in need. Even if the bike isn't good anymore, they'll take it for the parts.

Use the same tracking system that you use for your cars.

Hi There...I just happened across this post. I'm sure the situation has been taken care of but thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. We have a system with permits. We sent out a memo explaining to residents that we would be clearing out unclaimed bikes (we gave a 3 week notice)...attached was a permit request form that allowed for three bikes. Those were to be turned in with rent payment. We then added the permit number to the returned form and dropped off the permits to the residents. We posted reminders and most residents complied. The unclaimed bikes were then donated. The biggest thing is staying on top of it. We didn't include it as part of our move in procedure so now I need to do it again. Going forward it will be part of the move in/lease signing. Hope this helps! Sounds like a lot of steps but really, no big deal. And we made so much room!