Santander’s new electric bike rental service will begin operating before the end of the year or in the first week of January. It will have a total of 200 bikes distributed in the 26 collection and return stations distributed throughout the city, twenty for recharging and six more with anchor points only. It has already begun to be deployed.
The service has been awarded for five years for 1.26 million euros to the joint venture MOVUS, NEXTBIKE GMBH and ALSA, which will also be responsible for its management, conservation and maintenance for 501,817 euros per year.
This Thursday, the representative of the successful bidder, Fernando Gómez, accompanied the mayor, Gema Igual, and the Councilor for Sustainable Mobility, Agustín Navarro, at the beginning of the deployment of the stations, in Plaza Alfonso XIII.
The councilor has highlighted the improvements of the new service, which replaces the previous conventional bicycle service, and has underlined the municipal commitment to sustainable modes of transport, prioritizing active mobility in favor of environmental improvement and the health of citizens.
He highlighted that this is one of the actions financed with European funds, specifically with a subsidy of 864,000 euros of the 7.6 million obtained to implement the plan ‘Promotion of active mobility, promotion of modal change and digital and sustainable transformation of the Santander urban transport’.
“We took the leap and changed the current system of conventional bicycles for this one of electric bicycles, as citizens asked us, which we hope will be an incentive for neighbors and visitors to move around the city in an efficient and sustainable way,” he stated. Likewise, he has announced that all of the stations, “distributed throughout Santander to make it easy and accessible”, will be installed in the next 15 days.
He has also detailed that users will have Smartbike 2.0 model bicycles, from the NEXTBIKE brand, equipped with the latest technology and, at the same time, “robust”, designed specifically for bicycle sharing services.
They will be geolocated at all times using GPS, they will have an approximate weight of 29 kilos and an autonomy of 4 hours, they will have an integrated monitor to view the charge level, activate or deactivate the electric motor assistance.
Additionally, through a mobile application, which will be announced in the coming days, the user will be able to activate or deactivate the assistance when renting, taking a break or returning the bicycle, and the system will configure the deactivation in order to guarantee a minimum level of autonomy.
Regarding the stations, each one will have up to 20 anchor points and will allow users to return the bicycles next to the station, even when all the physical anchors are occupied, thus guaranteeing comfort and ease for the user when finishing their trip. rent.
All stations will have an access terminal, totem, with a QR code to interact with users through the service’s mobile application.
The service and management system will be operational from 06:00 to 00:00, every day of the week. The user will identify himself at the station and, once the system has recognized him and carried out the established controls, it will provide him with the bicycle among those available, recording the operation carried out.
Once used, the user will return the bicycle to any of the base stations that are close to their destination, and the operation carried out will also be recorded.
Among other operations, the system will also allow reservations for a bicycle at a specific station and with a maximum notice of 15 minutes.
There will be a user service to respond to requests and needs that will be integrated with the City Council’s citizen information channels, accessible by telephone, email, instant messaging, in-person service, service website/app and social media.
On the other hand, the system will make information available to users to be able to use the service, from initial information (conditions of use, rates, plans, etc.) to real-time information (availability of stations, incidents, etc.). ).
Regarding the rules of use and rates, they will be defined and approved prior to start-up; and several modalities will be enabled (pay per use, annual or monthly registration, etc.).
