Could a bike share scheme soon be on the cards for Canberra?

Account-based ticketing and bike shares are being seriously looked at by the ACT government, after Meegan Fitzharris' 11-day North America trip in May.

The $67,000 trip saw Ms Fitzharris and two government officials attend the International Association of Public Transport 2017 global public transport summit in Montreal and subsequent study tour in the US and Canada.

Ms Fitzharris became a fan of the bike share schemes - which allow people to make short, fast and cheap trips across cities - and said work had already begun to scope out how a bike share could work in Canberra.

"It was really clear from the conference that there are as many cities that want bike share as there are different systems and models that you need to consider," Ms Fitzharris said.

"You've got to have scheme that works for your city. You've got to understand who might use it, why they might use it and where they might use it so Transport Canberra and City Services have some work under way doing that and that is the first piece of work we'll do as part of the conference, having both used it and observed it in every city we went to."

Ms Fitzharris said the bike share scheme would likely operate as a public-private partnership and would not be launched for at least several months.

"We won't start bike share scheme in winter," she said.

Two schemes the ACT government would look closely at were those in Portland and Washington.

"[In Washington] if you already had the app you could use it but if you wanted to use your credit card, it would take 90 seconds to get the ticket for the bike, get the code, punch it into the bike and you're on your way," Ms Fitzharris said.

"In Portland the scheme was even better because it was also tracked around the city so you could have an app and you could see in it exactly where every bike in the scheme was anywhere in Portland.

"You could book it in advance so it could be available for you when you either got off light rail or got off your bus or if you wanted to walk down the end of the street and use a bike you could."

Portland was also bringing in an accounts-based public transport ticketing system, which Ms Fitzharris said they would also keep a close eye on.

The government has set aside $7.1 million over the next four years for feasibility work to develop a new integrated ticketing system to work across buses and light rail, with the MyWay ticketing contract expiring next year.

"It was really clear that everywhere around the world is moving from a ticket-based system to an account based system," Ms Fitzharris said.

"The fundamental difference is at the moment you have a stored value card where if you use it it's not the end of the world but it's not based on your accounts.

"The future would be you have an account for your transport movements and you could use your device or your card."

The Portland ticketing system also allowed people to book bike shares with their transport accounts - something Ms Fitzharris said they would consider for the Canberra scheme - and has begun to partner with private businesses to offer incentives for people to catch public transport.

"If you're a frequent transport user ... you might get 10 per cent off on your coffee, so there are lots of partnerships you can have with non-government organisations and the private sector which can link into it as well."

Portland is a favourite among ACT parliamentarians, with Andrew Barr and Shane Rattenbury also visiting in the past few years.

Ms Fitzharris said current public transport figures, while increasing, reiterated they needed to do more to get people using the network.

"[The feedback from the conference] confirmed for me that light rail is the right answer because everywhere it's been built people use it in greater numbers than they use existing bus services," Ms Fitzharris said.