PUNE: Four months from launch, the public bicycle sharing scheme seems to be a hit.
Since it was launched on December 5, more than 3.5 lakh citizens have used PEDLbicycles, even surpassing the global standard.

The international standard is three trips per cycle, per day. Pune has surpassed that by two trips a cycle every day.

The main aim of PBS is to make Pune a greener, healthier city. Under the scheme, the bicycles — appropriately coloured green — are made available to the public at a nominal charge. At the time of launch, each cycle cost Re 1 for 30 minutes. Now, the rate has gone up to Rs3 per 30 minutes.

The scheme was launched jointly by the Pune Smart City Development Corporation Limited (PSCDCL) and Pune Municipal Corporation, first at Aundh and replicated across the city.

According to the operators of the technology-controlled systems, hyper-local and dockless infrastructure played a major role in boosting the initiative’s popularity, as do cashless payments that require zero documentation.

The aim of the PSCDCL is to reduce the usage of private two-wheelers and cars on roads from 47% to 10%, and increase use of non-motorized transport (walking and cycling) to 50% by 2031.

“The initiative aims to ease the pain of people reliant on public transport and facing the challenge of last-mile connectivity,” said PSCDCL CEO Rajendra Jagtap, “Work towards creating a citywide infrastructure for the initiative is progressing at a fair clip.”

Per PSCDCL, Rs10 crore has been allocated to develop infrastructure such as dedicated/shared cycling tracks, parking locations, signage, advertisement and citizen-engagement programmes.

Activists and cycle enthusiasts have welcomed the initiative, but feel that it can be improved to widen its reach. “The number of cycles under this project should increase drastically,” said Ranjit Gadgil, an adviser for PBS. “ Currently, we see only a handful of the cycles. More cycles will automatically promote usage,” Gadgil added.

Gadgil, who played a key role in designing the scheme, said the city should have had at least 10,000 bicycles on the ground by now. Ideally, he said. there should be 35,000 bicycles — at least one per 100 citizens.

“Some improvements in the security systems could be done to make the service more reliable,” said Harshal Shirke, who uses the cycles regularly.

Subhadra Tambe, a student, said such bicycles are convenient for short distances.