5 years on, city gets bicycle-sharing at Rs 1

In a major boost to the non-motorised transport policy of the Greater Chennai Corporation, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami launched bicycle-sharing system on Wednesday.

The launch comes nearly five years after the civic body framed non-motorised transport (NMT) in 2014 and appointed a consultant to prepare a detailed project report for the implementation of the project in 2015.

While the civic body identified 378 locations to set up dockless bicycle stations, the Chennai Corporation, along with Hyderabad-based SmartBike, has set up six bicycle stations in Metrorail stations in Anna Nagar area and deployed 60 bicycles. SmartBike had already brought 250 bicycles and set up 19 more bicycle stations in Chennai, including five stations on Marina service road. In total, the civic body has proposed to operate 4,976 bicycles across the city.

“We have rolled out a smartphone application (SmartBike Mobility) and the users must install the application to ride bicycles. Users should also pay Rs 1 to activate their account. Scanning QR code stamped on the bicycle will unlock the bicycles. As a promotion initiative, users can have a free and unlimited ride after activating their accounts for one month,” N V Ram, General Manager (Operation) of SmartBike said. He added that remaining 19 stations would come into operation in less than a week.

Even though the riders are allowed to use the bicycles for free, they should park the bicycles at any of the bicycle stations within one hour. However, they can again take the same bicycle by scanning the QR code.

Meanwhile, executive engineer of Chennai Corporation and coordinator of bicycle sharing, B R Saravanamoorthy said that commuters could use bicycles from 8 am to 8 pm in Anna Nagar and 5 am to 10 pm in Marina Beach. “The time limit will be revoked once the bicycle sharing gets popular.”

The civic body also explained that the bicycle sharing is operated on design, built, finance and operate (DBFO) basisfor 7 years. “After the promotion period (1 month) the usersshould pay Rs 5 per hour through the mobile application and Rs 9 will be charged for every 30 minutes. All the bicycles are expected to be operational in this year,” he added.

Though riders can use debit and credit cards powered by Visa and Mastercard, they cannot use Rupay cards. “The government is promoting Rupay card and many nationalised banks are now issuing Rupay cards. I could not pay Rs 1 using my debit card,” M Kannan, a resident said. The representatives of SmartBike said that they would update the application to make Rupay cards valid.