The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, accompanied by the delegate of Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility, Borja Carabante, and the managing director of the EMT, Alfonso Sánchez, presented this Friday the completion of the implementation of the new Bicimad.
With the installation of the latest stations, Madrid becomes, as the mayor explained, "the first city in Europe to have a public system of rental electric bicycles that reaches all parts of the city."
Almeida highlighted “the extraordinary effort, both logistical, economic and technological” that the Madrid City Council has made to “double the number of service stations to reach 611” and “to double the number of bicycles, while at the same time renewing “the entire fleet of electric bikes.”
An effort, the mayor highlighted, that was carried out to fulfill "our commitment to bring Bicimad to the 21 districts of the capital, thus allowing all Madrid residents, regardless of where they live, to access this public service."
The public electric bicycle system, whose transformation began last March, has already been present since April in the 21 districts, thus significantly increasing its coverage to reach all citizens. With the last stations presented today, the service completes its implementation in the districts of Barajas (15 stations), Hortaleza (32 stations), San Blas-Canillejas (27 stations), Vicálvaro (14 stations), Villa de Vallecas (18 stations) and Villaverde (18 stations).
As Almeida pointed out, Bicimad has just reached its “peak figure” with a fleet of 7,500 new electric bicycles, 4,536 more vehicles than with the previous system, and 611 stations, which represents an increase of 347 bases, in the absence of two pending installation due to technical issues and whose location will be reconsidered in other parts of the city according to the current demand of the system.
Since the system was launched at the beginning of March of this year, 5,775,817 trips have been made with the new blue bicycles, that is, almost two million more trips than in the best full year so far (in In 2019, 3,895,978 trips were made in total).
The record figures for 2023 are also reflected in the monthly and daily counts. According to the system's historical data, the best month so far, June 2020, 434,642 trips were made, a figure that has been exceeded six times over the last nine months: in June with 539,004 trips, in July with 691,816, in August with 747,061, in September with 985,795, in October with 1,111,678 and in November with 1,229,541 trips.
Regarding daily uses, if until the arrival of the new Bicimad the record of trips was 17,338, registered on June 19, 2020, on November 17, 57,116 trips were made, that is, the uses tripled compared to that historical record.
Furthermore, since that date and during the month of November, 50,000 uses per day have been exceeded on two other occasions. The figures that in 2023 far exceed previous records also reach the number of people who, since March, have activated a Bicimad account. This is reflected by the fact that, with the new system, 311,218 people have activated a Bicimad account.
