Punjab Governor and UT Administrator VP Singh Badnore on Thursday launched the first phase of the public bike sharing system being developed under Chandigarh Smart City Limited, from the docking station located at Rock Garden here.
The Governor congratulated and encouraged the citizens of the city to use the public bike sharing system in their day to day activities and to commute within the city.
He emphasised to make the project successful and reduce CO2 footprint of the city, making it more environmentally friendly with reduced traffic congestion. The Governor himself took a ride on the bicycle alongwith other officials from Rock Garden to Punjab Raj Bhawan.
While briefing about the pilot project launched by the Governor, KK Yadav, Commissioner MCC-cum-CEO, CSCL said that the PBS system consists of 25 docking stations spread across the prominent locations in the City such as Rock Garden, High Court and Sukhna, PGIMER, Sector 17, Sector 22, Sector 34, Sector 35, Sector 43 with 225 bicycles, which includes more than 100 pedal assisted E-Bikes.
He said that in total 5,000 bicycles will be provided in the city alongwith a network of 617 docking stations spread throughout the city giving last mile connectivity to the users. This size of the project will make it India’s largest and densest public bike sharing network.
The project will be developed in 4 phases of 1250 cycles and 155 docking stations each, within a time span of 18 months, having the features of pedal assisted E-Bikes alongwith the charging facility at the docking stations, he said.
The Commissioner further said that all the bicycles are provided with GPS enabled locking arrangement and will be monitored in Command and Control Centre having the 24X7 facility of helpline for the users. This project is being implemented and operated by the concessionaire Smart Bike Tech Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad for the period of 10 Years on Public Private Partnership (PPP) basis.
He further said that the citizens will be able to take a bicycle on rent to commute through the city on a very nominal user charge which are Rs 10 for half an hour and Rs 5 for members for half an hour.
The Commissioner said that the users will be able to take a bicycle by downloading and registering through the mobile app ‘Smart Bike’, by unlocking and locking the bicycle at the Docking Station as per the requirement.
He said that docking stations have been provided keeping in view first and last mile connectivity to the users by bicycles.
He further said that as Chandigarh is participating in India Cycle4Change Challenge, an initiative of the Smart Cities Mission, Ministry of Housing and Urban affairs, Government of India, to inspire and support the cities to implement cycling- friendly initiatives, with the launch of Public Bike Sharing System, the prospects of winning have increased, he added.
