Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) is about to invite Expression of Interest from national and international players for revitalising its Public Bike Sharing (PBS) programme, one of its flagship non-motorised transport initiatives for facilitating last mile connectivity for metro services.
Many players, including Chinese companies, are learned to be interested in the project. The larger goal is to expand the programme beyond metro stations to Kochi Corporation’s Smart City corridor.
To test the water, KMRL had launched PBS on June 5 last year coinciding with World Environment Day on a Proof of Concept (PoC) basis in collaboration with Athi’s Bicycle Club, an already established player in the field.
As the project got under way, cycle racks were set up at Menaka, South and North railway stations and Kaloor with the objective of providing commuters free short-distance cycle rides in the Greater Kochi region.
Poor patronage
The project ran for three months till August and evoked great response thanks to its branding and wide promotion by KMRL through various channels. But after that the patronage began to sag. Since the arrangement was purely on PoC basis involving no financial commitment on the part of KMRL, the maintenance of cycle racks and cycles suffered, driving away users.
Collaboration
Alongside its efforts to rope in major players, KMRL is also trying to revive the initial collaboration by trying to leverage sponsorships using its clout.
For, unlike other players who offer the service for a fee, Athi’s Bicycle Club provided it for free thanks to its revenue model developed based on branding.
In the long run, KMRL even plans to promote usage of bikes by giving users the opportunity to win credit points and redeem it through the Kochi One pre-paid card.
M.S. Athirup, founder of Athi’s Bicycle Club, who had for long been operating the bike sharing programme successfully in the IT hubs of Technopark and Infopark, is upbeat about a reversal in the fortune of the project.
He falls back on some numbers for his optimism. In the three months the project was live, 1,388 people became members of the club out of which 718 actually used the bikes. In fact, the company is already working on fresh racks to be placed at seven metro stations in the hope that a solution will be worked out sooner rather than later to revive the project.
