The Parisian Velib - a contraction of velo libre meaning free bicycle - is now celebrating its first birthday and has become a huge hit in the French capital. Users, known as “Velibeurs”, pay a small subscription fee after which the bikes are free to use for the first half hour, with prices rising thereafter to encourage short journeys.

The cycles, which come in a deliberately unfashionable grey, clunky design to deter thieves, are picked up from and returned to self-service stations on almost every street corner in the city centre. A staggering 50,000,000 trips are estimated to have been enjoyed by Parisians in the first year alone.

The revolutionary scheme echos Amsterdam’s White Bicycle Plan in the 60s when anarchist groups painted 50 old bikes white and distributed them around the town to be used by whoever fancied them. Predictably they were all half-inched within days - or confiscated by the police depending on who you believe.

Thanks to technology and a computerised tracking system, the Velib looks likely to be a far more permanent proposition, although there have been teething problems. Around 3,000 bikes have gone missing and there have been incidents of “bike rage” at over-subscribed parking stations - notably those at the bottom of steep hills where lazier users have simply freewheeled from the top.

Nevertheless, Londoners could soon be enjoying a similar system to the one in the French capital thanks largely to Ken Livingstone becoming a rabid fan of the concept. “I was really excited when I heard about it ,” said the then Mayor in an interview with Thom Yorke earlier this year. “It’s made a massive difference,” he enthused to the Radiohead warbler, “a real psychological difference.”

Fortunately his successor, Boris Johnson, is sticking to Ken’s plans to introduce a London-wide variant. “The new Mayor had a presentation on the Velib a couple of weeks ago,” confirms Green Party London Assembly member Jenny Jones who is pushing for the scheme’s delivery. “He made an election promise to have it introduced next summer.”

Although many details still have to be ironed out, Jenny believes a London hire scheme could be even bigger than that enjoyed in Paris, particularly if integrated with the Oyster card: “Bikes are often the quickest way to travel in cities, so it makes sense to provide them as a new form of public transport, especially when the bikes can be used as part of a longer journey by bus, tube or train.”

Despite being well-known as a keen cyclist himself, gaffe-prone Boris’s green credentials have taken some flak in his first few months as Mayor. Critics point to his plan to scrap the congestion charge extension and his promise to allow motorbikes to use bus lanes, against the advice of the London Cycling Campaign. “He’s made some stupid decisions in my view,” says Jenny who is producing an assessment of Boris’s first 100 days as Mayor, due to be published at the end of this month. “He hasn’t got a very good scorecard.”