INTERVIEW | DUBLINBIKES
The sky’s the limit for dublinbikes
THE IRISH CAPITAL’S own bike hire scheme – dublinbikes – has just reached its second anniversary. Pre-dating London’s Barclays Cycle Hire, dublinbikes’ genesis was down to a number of people, not least of all Andrew Montague – councillor at the time of dublinbikes’ proposal in 2004 and inauguration in 2009 – and now, two years on, the Lord Mayor of Dublin. BikeBiz caught up with the man himself on
the day after dublinbikes celebrated its two year anniversary and trip milestone...
It’s two years since dublinbikes was launched. What are the latest numbers for the scheme? We’ve had two and a half million trips in the first two years.
Is that as many as you’d hoped for? It’s way ahead of expectations. As far as I know we’re the most successful bike [hire] scheme in the world in terms of usage (see inset page 41).
40 BIKEBIZ NOVEMBER
Two and a half million trips have been made on dublinbikes in the scheme’s first two years
And you’ve just had the Dublin Skyride as well? Was it successful? Yes, it’s our first time of doing it and we didn’t know how many to expect. Counting people is always difficult, but we do know that eight and a half thousand Sky Ride bibs were given out. We’re pretty sure there were more people cycling – maybe 11 or 12 thousand. The official figures are saying 10,000.
Going back to dublinbikes – were there any particular city cycle hire schemes that served as inspiration? The thing that got me interested was the Copenhagen scheme. I think they were the first to really crack it. They first introduced their bikes scheme in
1995. My memory of reading about it was that they had 1,000 bikes for free in the city and they were stolen very quickly. It was insurance companies that paid for it and they figured that half of the thefts were on-the-spot spur- of-the-moment – someone needed to get
Now Dublin’s city bike scheme has won over cynics it has ambitious plans in its sights. Jonathon Harker speaks to Dublin Lord Mayor Andrew Montague, one of the key men behind the project…
somewhere and there was a handy bike. They stuck with it and were prepared to pay for it again the following year. In 1996 they started to introduce some
security measures, like making the bikes very distinctive looking and making the parts non- standard so they couldn’t be stripped for parts. That year they only lost around 25 per cent of the bikes to thieves. And they knew they were onto something so they progressed and improved it. By the time we got the system we were using the JC Decaux system. It was computerised, automated and just a very secure system.
And was a fear of congestion and growing obesity a driver behind introducing the scheme to Dublin? No, it’s more a positive thing about cycling and there are a huge number of benefits. It’s just a great way to get around the city – the fastest way for short trips. It’s a very important mode of transport that is hugely successful in other
BIKEBIZ.COM
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