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A bicycle-sharing system

In a bustling metropolis, getting around in your own car can be damn near impossible, and parking fees can raid your wallet like a robust Viking in a meter-reader’s uniform. For medium-to-long-range trips, taxis and public transportation can be lifesavers, but they can still cost an arm and a leg, may waste time on an indirect route, and frequently rely on good old-fashioned fossil fuels. Bike-share systems can be a great alternative: You get some good cardiovascular exercise, you save some coin, and you get to look smug as you sail past lines of horn-honking dead-dinosaur-burners.

A bicycle-sharing system, public bicycle system, is a service in which bicycles are made available for shared use to individuals on a very short term basis. Bike share schemes allow people to borrow a bike from point "A" and return it at point "B". Many bike-share systems offer subscriptions that make the first 30–45 minutes of use either free or very inexpensive, encouraging use as transportation. This allows each bike to serve several users per day. In most bike-share cities, casual riding over several hours or days is better served by bicycle rental than by bike-share. For many systems, Smartphone mapping apps show nearby stations with available bikes and open docks.

The system consists of solar-powered automated kiosks that handle the bike rental via credit or debit card.. Riders can check out a B-cycle from any automated bike stations, ride to their destination and return the bike at any nearby station for an hour at a time. Individuals can purchase daily passes or memberships, including weekly, monthly and one-year options.

Since B-cycle launched in Nashville in 2012, 101,510 trips have been taken on B-cycles. That represents 263,753 miles and 435,597 pounds of carbon dioxide offset. It also represents 18,340,961 calories burned and 5,240 pounds lost, as well as 9,147 gallons of gasoline saved.

A sign of progress.... Mumbai gets its maiden public bike share program.

Public bike share programmes, which helped major cities around the world fight traffic problems and reduce pollution, made a debut on Monday, August 15, in Mumbai with a project to rent out bicycles starting in the north eastern suburb of Ghatkopar.

“This is a small experiment where we are starting with 20 bicycles which will be operating across five dedicated depots,” Kisanrao Gopale, the man behind the project supported by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai said.

The Corporation has given space for the cycling depots at five different places witnessing large footfalls on an experimental basis. People will have to pay Rs. 5 per journey, which is less than bus transport and also the “share rickshaws” unique to the city.

Under the programme, a registered person can hire out a bicycle from a depot and go to another. It helps fight traffic snarls, is pollution free and also makes the person more fit.

Major cities in the world, including New York and London have benefited immensely through such programmes. These are supported by major corporates who get branding space on the bicycle in return, Gopale said.

Appealing the people to donate bicycles, Gopale said he would like this experiment to be scaled up.

The megapolis has a bad reputation for traffic and with sedentary jobs, involving service sector driving the growth, fitness is also an issue which confronts the citizens, he said.

In the last few years, even though cycling has grown as a leisure activity, the city is yet to benefit from it as most journeys are conducted via carbon-emitting vehicles.

Apart from a largely unused cycle track in Bandra Kurla Complex, a fast emerging business district which the state wants to convert into a notified international finance centre, there is little cycling infrastructure in the city, Gopale added.

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Initially this idea was shared by Mr. Jossy Saldanha to his contact in Mumbai and this reached Thane Municipal Commissioner Mr. S. Jaiswal who asked further clarifications and now the system was taken up for trail and implemented in Ghatkopar.

We could try out similar stands between Santhekatte, Udupi, Malpe, Bramhavar and Kemmennu says kemmanite Jossy Saldanha who shared the details with kemmannu.com.