The Bike-sharing World the Last Week of December 2015

The World:

As 2015 comes to an end, it is time to think about recapping the numbers for this year's achievements in public use bicycle cities around the world.

This animation shows the growth of the public use programs in the world since 1993 through 2015 and beyond. As this year closes, there have been around 120 new cities so far that have started bike-share systems. China leads the way with around 60 new cities, while the USA saw around 20 new cities join this movement.

Blue: New City - Grey: Terminated - Yellow: Planned
Using the data from The Bike-sharing World Map, a comprehensive look at 2015 will available on this blog in early January 2016.

Currently, there are around 980 cities that have automated, 3rd generation, information technology bicycle programs that allow 'A' to 'B' pick-up and drop-off. The total number of public use bicycles in operation throughout these cities is around 1,258,500. New this year is the inclusion of  'Pedelecs', electrical assist pedal bicycles, which comprises around 9,300 bicycles of this total. This subset has been growing extensively in the last year and will only continue to do so into 2016.

Liangzhuzhen, Hangzhou, China new Smart GPS Bicycle

Asia:
China

Hangzhou,

After years of utilizing fairly low grade bicycles in public services, many Chinese cities are finally upgrading them. The Hangzhou GST Development Company, the research and development arm of the Hangzhou Public Bicycle Program, has created a GPS enabled "smart bike" as part of the IBSplus system to be first deployed in Laingzhu, a town near Hangzhou.

The same company is also creating a single access and payment card called "ibicycle", which can be used to access all of the 147 services throughout China that utilize their equipment, according to the Kim Tong News Agency. Additionally, The Hangzhou GST Development Company is developing a mobile phone application they have named "icycle", which can be used to access, pay, and map the bicycle usage.

The other major Chinese company, Changzhou Wing Eversafe Public Bicycle Systems, has already issued a single access card to 44 of the 150 cities that use its equipment including the Russian city of Blagoveshchensk on the Chinese border.

Jincheng,

Jincheng, China Pedelecs

This month Jincheng, Shanxi added 3,000  
Pedelecs to its current 5,000 pedal bicycle service, making it the first and largest deployment of pedelecs not only in China, but in the world. Jincheng joins Barcelona and Milan with mixed pedal and pedelec bicycles in their fleets. With only a few days in operation, it is not known if the new pedelecs are being used as much as in these two other cities.                                                                                                                  

North America:
USA:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
Birmingham,

ZYP Bikeshare

Directions on how to use ZYP

Speaking of mixed Pedelec and pedal services, ZYP Bikeshare has brought solar-powered electric assist bicycles to the deep South of the United States. Since its debut in October, around 2,800 members have ZYP'ed around town, making the service's name a verb to describe the experience. 


Around 25% of the current fleet of 300 bikes in 30 stations are pedelecs, which help the residents and visitors conquer the hills surrounding the Central Business District (CBD). This spring the service will grow to 100 pedelecs and 300 8-speed pedal bikes in 40 totally solar stations. All the bikes are 'smart GPS-enabled' and the illuminated kiosk can dispense a rechargeable card for those who are only occasional users. As with many services, the bikes can be accessed using a mobile phone application. 

ZYP'ing around the Birmingham's CBD is now "no sweat" with a little pedal assist!
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
images: IBSplus Bike, Jincheng Pedelec, ZYP Bikeshare

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 Public Use Bicycle programs and the complement to The Bike-sharing Blog. Use this easy web address for viewing the map:  

www.bikesharingmap.com.

Follow the Map on Twitter@BikesharingMap                                                 

The Bike-sharing World - Interview with Alain Ayotte

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.

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.com

2014-08-25

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.

Follow the Map on Twitter@BikesharingMap