Bikesharing can be a public or private service of shared bicycles. This concept appeared in Amsterdam during the sixties.
It consists of renting electric bicycles for short routes. These bicycles have assisted pedaling, which allows all types of people to use them, no matter their age or physical condition.
Bikesharing systems improve the perception of bicycles as an efficient option for daily mobility.
Bikesharing, what is it and which are its benefits?
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When and how is bikesharing used
This practice is more common in the main city centers, in particular in cities with more than a million inhabitants. In these megacities bicycle use is predominating more and more in the micromobility network, short trips with easy and efficient routes.
Bicycles are rented for short periods of time, thus facilitating the implementation of micromobility in cities.
Bikesharing improves intermodality in transport
Intermodality is the use of various means of transport to reach the final destination. They can be combinations of the bus and subway services, but those that interest citizens the most are the ones that end the bus or subway route with a bicycle stretch.
Instead of using their bicycle, the vast majority of citizens prefer to use bikesharing services, thus not having to worry about finding a parking space for their bicycle as it belongs to a bicycle fleet. These bicycle fleets belong to companies responsible for their maintenance, distribution, and providing parking.
Bikesharing systems receive user support and are easily integrated in cities thanks, to a great extent, to their benefits for urban micromobility.
Benefits of bikesharing
The benefits of bikesharing encompass a great deal of different areas:
- Decrease in contamination
- Promotion of health and physical exercise
- Creation of more inclusive cities and streets
- Flexibility in transport
- More accessible and economic transport
- Not worrying about bicycle maintenance
- Parking with ease
- Traffic decongestion
Why are cities interested in bikesharing
Bicycles have no contamination restrictions and can access the city center, which few other means of transport are allowed to do. Thanks to this and their versatility as a means of transport, more people are becoming users.
Bikesharing systems are quite visible, and with their bicycles traveling through crowded streets in city centers, they are introducing bicycles to more citizens.
User benefits
Riding a bicycle has almost uncountable benefits, be it reducing greenhouse gas emissions or promoting health and physical exercise.
Furthermore, more inclusive streets and more humane cities are created, meanwhile vehicular transport alienates users, due to each person being inside their own vehicle and not interacting with their surroundings.
Electric bicycles encourage inclusivity, anyone can use them, and they are more accessible and economic than motorized means of transport.
Global service
The bicycles used in these services are part of bicycle fleets belonging to companies that are in charge of distribution and maintenance. In contrast to what happens with a personal bicycle, the user is no longer concerned with its maintenance.
These bicycles are easy to park in the strategically positioned parking spaces provided by the company or the local government.
City organization
Cycling when moving around the city helps decongest traffic and provides users with greater freedom when it comes to transport. Using bicycles also modifies the cities’ landscape, leading to a model focused on people and their wellbeing.
Furthermore, these bicycles are electric and an ecological solution for cities. This argument correlates to the increase in the population’s environmental and sustainable consciousness, since a decrease in motorized traffic implies a reduction of pollution in cities.
How to correctly introduce bikesharing
According to the Red de Ciudades por la Bicicleta (RedBici), a badly established bikesharing system can generate significant negative effects in urban environments. It is not considered correctly established when it has been installed intensively and there is no regulation of the process. Such a bikesharing system creates management and public space security problems, and the administration must assume high costs to face them.
It is crucial that the bikesharing systems in our cities are not the ones named dockless bikesharing, to prevent situations as seen in some megacities.
With upandbike’s network of secure bicycle parking, we offer a solution to this dilemma.
A good bikesharing system with upandbike
One of the key objectives of cities is to reach the model of smart cities through the adaptation of existing infrastructures to facilitate accessibility, improve the quality of life of their citizens and put faith in sustainability.
The network of upandbike’s bicycle parking lots is easily integrated into cities and promotes sustainable mobility, in addition to being a good resource for bikesharing systems.
upandbike allows you to park and recharge your electric bicycle safely and optimizes urban space for more organized cities.
Practices such as bikesharing let us see an increase in the use of electric bicycles, followed by a rise in the demand for secure parking spaces. The cyclists’ investment in an electric bicycle is much higher, and they look for a secure parking in which to leave their bicycles.
upandbike’s wide range of products offers solutions focused towards each situation, in which bicycles are isolated from others and the exterior, providing a greater sense of security for cyclists.
