Recently,
the Bike-sharing Blog had the opportunity to interview Alain Ayotte.
He is the past
President and CEO of Public Bike System Company (PBSC) and one of the creators of
the bIXI bike-share system in
Montréal. He led the design and development of this first modular “drop in
place” bike-sharing system deployed in Montréal in May 2009. Soon after, this
award winning system was deployed in Melbourne, Australia; Minneapolis,
Minnesota; Pullman, Washington; London, England; Washington, DC; Toronto,
Ontario; Ottawa, Ontario; Boston, Massachusetts; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Stony
Brook, New York; New York City, New York; Chicago, Illinois; Columbus, Ohio and
Aspen, Colorado.
In February 2013, he left PBSC Urban Solutions.
In February 2013, he left PBSC Urban Solutions.
He can be
considered one of the founding fathers of Bike-sharing in North America.
Bike-sharing
Blog: So after you left PBSC what have you been doing?
Alain Ayotte: I needed some time off to reinvigorate myself
and spend time with my family. Then I quickly realized that I wanted to
continue to contribute to the urban mobility field. It is a field about which I
am passionate and where we really can have an impact on people’s lives. I could no longer do so in my previous role and that was the
main reason which led to my departure.
At
the end of 2013, I teamed up with great partners who all shared my vision of
urban mobility: Michel Dallaire, the world renowned designer; Procycle Group, bicycle manufacturers of Rocky Mountain, Miele, and eVox electric bikes, and BikeEmotion, a consortium of three companies and
a university, to advance bike-sharing technology. We then created a new company
called Bewegen Technologies (Bewegen). Our vision is to inject sustainability
into the urban transportation mix. To achieve this goal, we created a
shared-transportation solution. Think of it as bike-sharing plus…
B-s
B: Tell us what does Bewegen mean? From where does Bewegen come?
Ayotte:
As you can imagine, the naming of our company was
one of the first tasks we tackled. Hours and hours of research and
brainstorming went into finding our name. We wanted to pay tribute to the
Netherlands as the pioneers of bike-sharing and of bicycle commuting. We decided on this unique name: Bewegen. Bewegen is simply the verb “to
move’’ in Dutch and German. We integrated a lightning bolt into the word to
make our logo and to link it with our product.
B-s
B: Being an innovator in the bike-sharing industry, you helped create a solar
powered bike sharing system with modular docking stations which can be picked
up or put down in 20 minutes. This facilitated the ability of removing an
entire system from the street during harsh winters and reduced the cost of
installation for electrical hook up. This changed the way North American cities
deployed bike-share which now has been copied throughout the world.
Innovations
have been the hallmark of your work. So with your new system what innovations are
you bringing to the world?
Ayotte:
We developed
a very flexible system in order to give people more freedom and complement the
current available means of shared-transportation. With world-renowned partners
and multi patent-pending innovations we bring cutting-edge elements such as:
- Pedelec (electric-assist) motor e-bikes, equipped with live GPS and semi-flat foot ergonomics, eliminating the need to tilt or dismount the bike while at rest
- Virtual (non-physical) stations
- Kiosk-less rentals (with kiosk available for information and casual membership access)
- Vehicle driven technology
- Fully integrated front and back office solutions
- Mobile Phone Applications with full rental capabilities
- Superb design for easy functionality
Here’s
a sneak peak:
B-s
B: When will we be able to see these Bewegen bikes and stations?
Ayotte:
We will
officially unveil our product in early September at Pro Walk/Pro Bike/Pro Place in Pittsburgh, PA. The Bewegen team and its partners will be happy to show and
explain it to whoever will be present. As far as full scale implementations, we will
be ready to hit the streets of cities and towns in summer 2015.
You can also see the Bewegen experience on our website being launched in the next few days at www.bewegen.com
B-s
B: We know that the future of bike-sharing is going toward “pedelecs” (pedal
assisted electrically powered bicycles). Copenhagen, Denmark and Madrid, Spain
started pedelec systems this year, Barcelona will add pedelecs to its fleet
this December. Rome just issued a tender offer for a pedelec system. Many
Italian cities now have mixed bicycle –pedelec programs. Do you believe that
pedelecs will ultimately replace or augment all current bike-share systems?
Ayotte:
Conventional bike-sharing was good a start, but has many limitations. The modal share numbers
speak for themselves. They limit the impact that bike-sharing can have on the
urban transportation mix of a city. This also limits the pool of riders and the
types of use they can get out every trip. I believe that shared pedelec
(electric-assist) vehicles are truly the missing link in urban mobility and
will soon become the norm.
B-s
B: So tell us how do cities planning bike-share or cities with existing bike-share programs plug into this electrifying change for bike-share?
Ayotte: Our flexible technology allows
us to integrate Bewegen into an existing system or have it available as a
stand-alone system. However, every location has a specific reality and we do
not want to generalize a procedure. We prefer to evaluate extensively each
demand and adapt to each potential customer’s situation. With our partners, we
can count on over 200 dedicated and experienced people to fulfill any demand.
We are ready to serve and we’re only a click away at: www.bewegen.com2014-08-25
NABSA
The first Annual Meeting of the North American Bikeshare Association (NABSA) will be held in Pittsburgh, PA next month on September 7th and 8th. For more information: NABSA Annual Meeting
images: Bewegen Technologies
Russell Meddin bikesharephiladelphia.org
Keep in touch with The Bike-sharing World with The Bike-sharing World Map. It is the premiere resource for information on cities with bike-sharing programs and the complement to The Bike-sharing Blog. The easy web address for viewing the map is www.bikesharingworld.com.
