RFID Technology Deters Bicycle Thefts in Denmark

To prevent bike thefts and reclaim stolen bikes, many cities are using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology on bikes. The bikes will now be able to identify the owner of the bike and also communicate with the authorities when it is stolen.

Bikes are stolen in huge numbers in various parts of the world, especially in Denmark, where 20,000 bikes were stolen in Copenhagen alone last year. To deter bike theft, Denmark and other countries have now started using RFID in bikes, according to a report on Tree Hugger. Copenhagen, in collaboration with the Danish Technical Institute, will implant RFID chips in bicycles and track their whereabouts when stolen. The campaign is called "Kun en hykler stjaeler cykler" (means “Only a hypocrite steals bikes" in Danish). The Bring Express, a large local bike messenger service, is promoting this campaign. The messenger service loses bikes regularly and they hope this campaign will help stop it. Also, the city is planning to have the RFID chips on every bike for easy identification, allowing them to be tracked if they are stolen. The University of Portsmouth in UK has developed the WASP (Wireless Asset Security Protection) to prevent bike theft. They embed an RFID tag on bikes and when users park their bikes in the WASP safe zone, the user initiates a mobile call to note their location to a web server. And when they check out from that location, they make a call again to the server. If it is stolen and a call is not made, a camera zooms in and captures the photo of the person stealing the bike. There is another RFID system in UK called Immobitag, which offers RFID tags for $20. When the bike is stolen, the RFID tags are read from the police database and the owner is contacted. Oregon State University has a similar program with their “Bug Your Bike” program and offer RFID tags for free to bicycle owners.