Tag: bike share

Review: E-bikes share system in Wedel, Germany

You may have read about my newly kindled love for bike share systems. Hamburg’s citybike wasn’t the only project that made my heart flutter: In Wedel, a tranquil little city of Hamburg’s outskirts, we HAD to try the local bike share system. Why was it different to Hamburg’s citybike, you wonder? Well, there you see the boundaries of local government, literally. Wedel belongs to a different local government area, hence they opted for a different bike share system.

Here a quick review:

The excellent aspects of Wedel’s bike share:

  • This system provides E-bikes, which come with a number of advantages. Hire bicycles cater for normal sized people and anyone bigger (like my partner) than normal will find the bike fit is less than desirable. Imagine yourself borrowing the bike of a five-year old and you’ll get close to my partner’s sensation on a regular bike. While it would have been hard to pedal a small bike, the pedal assist on an e-bike compensated and provided comfort.
  • Wedel is flat as a pancake, but windy as. Again, the e-bikes enabled us to travel without kicking up a sweat. Our goal was to get around in comfort and site-see, which we were able to achieve. I might add, the sleek sit-up style made it VERY comfortable.
  • The self-serve vending machine was easy to use (despite a little paper-dispenser hiccup), accepted credit cards and made picking-up and returning the bike a breeze.
  • Access to the share system was easy: the bike boxes were 20 meters away from the train station and bus port so it was super easy to combine trips with public transport.

The challenges of Wedel’s bike share:

  • We hired the bicycles for two days and by the time we returned our trusted treadlies, both of the bikes’ batteries were starting to run low. While that worked out well for us I wondered how to charge the batteries? One of the options was to hire the bicycles for an entire week – surely you would need a charger cable or replacement battery for the entire time?
  • The system was easy to use, but I couldn’t find any options for regular users like customer cards.
  • The number of access and return points were limited to a few local government run spots (leisure centre and train stations were the ones I came across). Limiting the no doubt expensive infrastructure also limits the use.

If the city’s objective was to provide alternative transport to visitors and tourists then this goal was achieved. We were happy customers and would recommend a trip around town by bike to anyone. Whether this system supports locals’ short trips around town is questionable.

Have you used and e-bike share system? What was your experience?

Bike Share: when it’s done well

What is Bike share? Bike share systems are local government run provisions of bicycles (free or at low cost) supporting a city’s transport system. Such a system works alongside a network of buses, trains, trams, taxi/uber and private vehicles and provide people a way of getting around town without. The nature of trips are usually short and bike shares fills specific needs for users to get around town. Of course, the idea is to get people active, minimise their carbon footprint and alleviating congestion.

Many local government authorities around Australia are playing with the idea of implementing these systems. Advocates and critics cast their eyes to Melbourne and Adelaide where bike shares have been implemented. Running a successful bike share systems contains more than simply buying a bunch of bicycles, locking them at the nearest corner and waiting for people to do their thing. Risk adverse councils like to point to lack of infrastructure and costs versus uptake.

The bike share debate has left me fairly ambivalent in the past for various reasons: my bicycle is dear to me (I’ve named it for god sake!), I plan my trips with my own bicycle and public transport, which means I had no personal need. Yes, I could imagine it may be useful, but as neither Perth nor Fremantle have a bike share I also couldn’t imagine what it would be like with one. You don’t miss what you don’t have.

Well, this all was meant to change on my last stint to Europe.

What are all those red bicycles about, I wondered while doing the tourist shuffle through Hamburg and Berlin. In both cities people were zapping around town on fire engine red “StadtRAD” (Citybike) branded treadlies. Train station exits donned bicycle racks with parked citybikes waiting for their next user. I had to find out more about it.

Hamburg’s bike share website explains how it works: first 30 minutes are free, hire and return your bicycle at any station you like – where are the stations? Well, where AREN’T the stations? There is hundreds of them scattered around town!

Perfect for tourists, I thought. Yes, but actually, perfect for anyone who needs to travel a short journey as the system is set up with customer cards, mobile phone access for very fast and convenient rentals.

It makes sense. The more you know a city the more you know exactly which of your trips are worth using buses or trains for, which require a car and which one you can tick of by bike.

Did people in Hamburg and Berlin complain about traffic? Oh yes, they did. Did they have alternatives for using the car? Hell yes, and they did! In fact, the single most complained about aspect of travelling by car was *drum roll*, you guessed it: parking! Any short, quick trip by car was prolonged by finding parking that riding a bicycle made more sense.

Have you tried a bike share? What were your experiences?