Access to a bike anywhere, whenever and wherever you want and according to the app or site of your choice. That’s the dream of eleven bicycle-sharing providers.
Recently in The Hague, eleven providers signed a covenant in which they agreed that their customers would also have easy access to all other shared bikes. The team includes BimBimBikes, Cykl, Donkey Republic, Du Nord / Haagsche city bike, Emotion sustainable mobility, FlickBike, Hello bike, Mobike, Nextbike, Urbee, Luud Schimmelpennink, and Gobike.
The providers want to work with a new technology that makes it possible to rent partial bikes through digital channels. Ultimately, this should lead to users everywhere in the Netherlands being able to easily use a shared bike via their own provider. This simplifies the use of a shared bicycle even more.
Michel Willems of BimBimBikes is one of the bicycle-sharing providers involved said, “If commuters and tourists can choose from all our bicycles in the future, fewer bicycles will be stationary and the bikes will be used more. We all believe that this is an important hurdle to overcome so we have put aside our different interest, rolled up our sleeves and started working. This covenant is a wonderful result of the work that has gone into the project. Other bike-sharing providers can also join the covenant.”
The municipalities of The Hague, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Eindhoven and the municipality and transport region Amsterdam have facilitated the process of reaching this covenant. According to The Hague alderman for Mobility, Robert van Asten, this initiative of the bike-sharing providers is in line with the mobility challenges facing all five cities.
“The city is becoming increasingly fuller and we are all looking for ways to keep our cities accessible. The use of bicycles plays an important role in this. The shared bike can be a useful contribution to keeping the city accessible. Thanks to this covenant, users can use a shared bike in all the cities they visit without any additional barriers. This is not only good news for the providers of these bicycles, but it is also important for the municipalities that more people will cycle instead of taking their cars in the city,” said Van Asten.
State Secretary Stientje van Veldhoven (Infrastructure and Water Management) also supports the cooperation. “My goal is to get 200,000 extra commuters on bikes. Shared bikes can help reach this goal. Shared bikes can especially help with the last mile solution of the public transport journey.
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