The African Continent - The Third Week of October 2016

AFRICA
Morocco
Marrakesh

Medina Bike Marrakesh Morocco

The first public use bicycle program on the African Continent will begin on November 7, 2016.  Medina Bike will launch with 300 bikes in 12 stations for the opening of the Congress of Parties, COP22, of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC, in Morocco. According to InfoMédiare the program will have equipment from the French company Smoove.

ASIA

China

Shenzhen

Mobike Light

This week Mobike, the free floating Chinese public use bike program, has expanded into Shenzhen, China. Starting in April 2016 in Shanghai, the are now Mobikes in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen according to LeiPhone.com. Also this week, Mobike introduced a new Mobike Light bicycle. According to the Shanghai Daily, this bike will first be deployed in the Baoshan District, just north of Shanghai. It will cost around 7¢US per 30 minutes to use this new bike. One half the price of using the original Mobike! Between these two bicycles, Mobike hopes to have 100,000 bicycles on the streets of greater Shanghai by the end of the year. That would overtake Hangzhou for the title of the city with the world's largest public use bicycle program.

EUROPE

Germany

Berlin

Nextbike Berlin, Germany

This week Nextbike started installing a pilot program running for the month of November in Lichtenberg, Germany. This is a test to make ready for its deployment of 5,000 bikes in 700 stations next year in the city of Berlin. The program is to replace the 1,500 bike Call-a-Bike system currently in Berlin. According to Berlin.de and Berliner Kurier, the City Senate has told Call-a-Bike to remove its bikes and stations, but Deutche Bahn, Call-a Bike's parent company, says it will replace its system with a new one in Berlin. Stay tuned for reports on this teutonic shift!

NORTH AMERICA

USA

Wisconsin

B-cycle Dash

B-cycle Dash+

B-cycle introduced two new bicycles to add to their offering for the public use bicycle market. The Dash has an 'on the bike user interface' that could be used in a 'free floater' dockless set up. It will be available soon and is compatible with current B-cycle programs. Also debuted, in prototype form, is the Dash+, a pedelec, which will be available in 2018. Both bikes can be accessed by mobile phone applications and a have a handle bar electronic screen to display navigation and information.

Texas

Austin

The North American Bikeshare Association

           2016 Annual Conference is November 9-11                                             Austin, Texas USA

This is the conference to attend in 2016 for all information you will need to know about Public Use Bicycling whether in North America or not! 

For information and registration: www.nabsa.net

images: Smoove, Mobike: Liephone, Nextbike: rbb/24, Bcycle, Digital Journal

Russell Meddin

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. The map can be viewed at www.bikesharingmap.com.

Follow the Map on Twitter@BikesharingMap   

Yeah, We Can Do Hills Too

Some of bike-sharing's naysayers have complained that it won't work in their home city because it's too hilly. Well, this isn't a problem anymore with Bicincitta's introduction of Mobik in hilly Genova (Genoa), Italy. MoBike is the world's second 3rd generation bike-sharing program with pedal-assist bikes. (Monaco had the first pedal-assist launch in February.) The bikes can go 19 mi (30 km) on a charge. When the battery is low and parked at a station, the station recharges it and will release it to another customer when fully recharged.

According to Mentelocale, the service launched on April 5 with 60 bikes and 6 stations. MoBike is a partnership of the Municipality of Genova, Mobi (laboratory of sustainable mobility) in collaboration with AMT (Genova Car-sharing.) The cost to join the service is $40 (30 EUR) and the first 30 minutes of each trip are free. With a successful program, authorities plan to ramp up the service to 200 bikes.



Farell Simone, Deputy Mayor and Councilor of Genova, stated that bike-sharing "is the critical mass of reform, the global movement, which manifests on two wheels."

With MoBike, the people of Genova can do Mo hills and Mo trips by bike.

photo credit: Mentelocale

Update: Xavier B. informs The Bike-sharing Blog that Parma, Italy and Segovia, Spain incorporated electric-assist bikes on a limited basis.