Former lord mayor Campbell Newman introduced the public bike hire scheme in October 2010 with 500 bikes available from more than 40 stations in inner Brisbane.

In the first month, just 6075 trips were taken and 1748 long-term members signed up.

By January 2011, trip numbers dropped to 3020 and just 226 new long-term members signed up for the Brisbane City Council-driven scheme.

Over the past seven financial years, the CityCycle scheme has cost about $27.6 million and generated about $14.7 million, leaving the scheme $12.85 million in the red.

The council's public and active transport chairman Adrian Schrinner said CityCycle was continuing to grow in popularity.

"CityCycle has been used for more than 2.14 million trips since it began and last month [September] 37,770 trips were taken around the inner city," Cr Schrinner said.

Over the past seven years, patronage has risen steadily, along with growth in revenue, reducing the cost to ratepayers.

In the 2010-11 financial year, the scheme cost ratepayers about $6.7 million and more than a million dollars in each of the two following financial years.

From 2013-14 onwards the final expense of the scheme, after taking revenue into account, has been less than $1 million and hit its lowest in 2015-16 at $760,548.

Cr Schrinner said the council's agreement with CityCycle partner JCDecaux allowed for international and local outdoor to subsidise the cost of the scheme.

"Under this agreement, we have been able to boost our international profile in key markets, which has helped attract record high tourism numbers and secure major events including the Battle of Brisbane world title fight," he said.

Opposition transport spokesperson Jared Cassidy said the claim CityCycle played a part in luring Manny Pacquaio to Brisbane was preposterous.

"The $1.7 million the council paid the fight's promoters is what helped get them to Brisbane," Cr Cassidy said.

"I'm calling on the council to quantify exactly what exposure we receive overseas through JCDecaux - how many billboards in which markets and for how long.

While CityCycle was slow to pick up momentum, a few key changes to the scheme appeared to be linked to growth in trips.

When the bikes were introduced they could only be hired between 5am and 10pm but, following a three-month trial, this changed to 24 hours a day on December 1, 2013.

Since January 2014 trips have easily passed 20,000 every month.

Before December 2013, the number of trips taken monthly was struggling to push 20,000 and had only surpassed that in seven of the prior 39 months.

Monthly trip data has also shown a significant jump in use following the introduction of tap-and-go facilities at all CityCycle stations in July this year, making the process of hiring the bikes easier.

Record trip numbers have been taken since tap-and-go was introduced, with 57,256 trips taken in July and 63,803 in August.

Wearing helmets is compulsory for all bike riders in Brisbane, including those using CityCycle bicycles, but Cr Schinner has been pushing for helmets to be made optional to boost cycling numbers.

This change would need to be implemented by the state government.

There are now about 2000 bikes and 150 stations across Brisbane's city centre, stretching from Newstead to West End and Toowong.

Estimates suggested that in the 2017-18 financial year the scheme would cost about $3.3 million, but after revenue estimates of $3.1 million are taken into account it was estimated to cost ratepayers about $231,000.