Electric bicycles, which are now the majority in Bicing, represented an almost anecdotal percentage four years ago, when the new public bicycle system was deployed in the Catalan capital. Today, of the 7,000 bikes in service, 4,000 are electric, 57% of the total. The concessionaire company, Pedalem Barcelona, has completed this month the transformation of the last 250 of the thousand bikes that have undergone an electrification process since May. The operation involves incorporating the battery inside the frame, as well as the corresponding electronic components.
The replacement of bicycles that have assistance with respect to regular ones culminates a process of adaptation to the evolution of demand. Around 70% of the 60,000 trips made daily now correspond to electric bikes, compared to 30% for mechanical ones, despite the fact that until recently they were still the majority. In this way, “we respond to the new mobility needs of citizens,” says the first deputy mayor and president of BSM, Laia Bonet.
Barcelona City Council has contributed close to half a million euros to the concessionaire to finance this conversion, which was already included precisely as one of the benefits of the new Bicing contract implemented in 2019, when it started with 1,700 electric bikes and the unknown of What response would they have? The charge of 35 cents for each use – while the classic ones are incorporated into the price of the annual subscription – has not stopped its popularity, especially after the pandemic, when such an increase in users was registered that at some times and in certain places it is impossible find a bike, neither mechanical nor electric.
The number of subscribers is now around 147,000, well above the just over 100,000 that there were when the change to the new system occurred. “We must also take into account the expansion of the network to the entire city, including the mountain neighborhoods, where the orography makes citizens prefer to take electric bikes,” says Bonet.
The electrification of the thousand bikes has been accompanied by the incorporation to the Smou application of a predictive service that indicates the probability of finding free bikes or free anchors at each station in the next 15 minutes as part of a set of improvements promoted to reverse the increasing complaints about the service.
