Monday, 22. 8. 2011

Bicikelj now boasts 31 stations

The last two stations have been added to the Bicikelj self-service bike loan system. You can now pick up or drop off bikes from 31 stations.

Both stations are on Vojkova cesta in Bežigrad, at the corner of Vojkova and Božičeva and on Vojkova at Stožice Sports Park, just a stone's throw from the motorway ring road.

Just over three months since its inception, Bicikelj already has close to 20,000 users, who have made almost 180,000 journeys. About 98% of all uses are less than 60 minutes and are thus free. The statistics confirm that residents and visitors have welcomed the new acquisition, which brings completion of the city's public transport system a step closer.

Annual subscribers predominate among the users (18,200), and thus compared to June the number of bike loans has fallen slightly during the holiday period. The number of daily loans in June exceeded the 3,000 mark several times, with a record number of loans on 22 June when the system clocked up 3,610 uses. On that day the average loan period was 20 minutes, meaning that each bike was in use for an average of a good four hours. In July and August the number of loans during the week varied between 2,200 and 2,700 a day, and around 1,000 a day at weekends.

Among the best-used stations in the Bicikelj system are those outside Nama, at Prešeren Square and on Dunajska cesta outside the Mercator HQ building.

Europlakat, the City of Ljubljana's private partner in the common project, manages the Bicikelj system and provides a team of 14 who are responsible for its operation and maintenance. Among other things, they take care of transfers of bikes from full to emptier stations with three teams handling around 500 bike transfers a day between 6am and 9pm. This means they move every bike in the system at least once a day on average.

System users can check the availability of bikes or parking spaces at individual stations at terminals at the stations or via an app on their mobile devices.