A highly enthusiastic Urban Development Department got its proposal of starting bicycle sharing system for Ranchi under Smart City plan approved by State Cabinet on Saturday.
However those, who are expected to be benefitted with the system the most in city once it comes into effect, believe that paddling sharing bicycle system in a city which has remained pathetically unorganized on civic services’ front so far will prove to be a never-before sweating task for authorities.
But Urban Development Department believes that the move would not only change the face of urban transport of capital city as it did in developed cities of Europe, the USA and in Mexico City in probably most effective way, but will also reduce increasing pollution burden over city skies and around considerably.
Notably, the government has decided to start 120 such points in city where a bicycle can be acquired on rent for short time.
“I am not sure how much effective sharing bicycle system is going to be in city where there are not even proper pavements and no one takes traffic rules seriously. The rash drivers and bikers have turned the city a hell for pedestrians and cyclists,” said Ranchi College BCA student Priyanka Jha on Sunday.
“It is a well-thought and worked out plan. We had visited to Mexico City some time ago along with our Department Minister only to understand how the city has become role-model of success of bicycle sharing system. Moreover, a team of global organisation, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) had visited to Ranchi only to study feasibility of such system here. They have found the city perfectly suitable for launching this system,” said State Urban Development Authority (SUDA) Director Rajesh Kumar Sharma on Sunday. Notably, Ranchi Smart City is being developed under SUDA only.
Though Sharma admitted issues pertaining to the road safety for padestrians and cyclists in city, he said that things were going to improve once system came into effect. He said that the Department was coming up with invitation of Expression of Interest (EoI) within two weeks from parties willing to operate the service on Public Private Partnership (PPP) model, which is expected to be operational within a year.
Notably, BIT Mesra students started one such cycle sharing system inside campus some two years ago in line with other universities around the world. “We tried a lot to expand it outside campus, but failed because no investor agreed to fund our project saying that it was going to be miserable failure in cities like Ranchi,” said Arnab Kumar Das who was associated with the programe until he left for IIM Indore to pursue his studies recently.
Sharing bicycle stands are set up near bus stands, connecting roads and other places where people get down from public transport system like buses and city metro rail services.
One gets down from bus or metro rail, goes to sharing bicycle stands close to it, picks up a cycle from there at much lower cost, drops the cycle at another such stand nearest to his/her destination, pays and that’s all. The cycles remain GPS enabled to prevent possible theft of cycles by customers itself.
Moreover, stands usually keep at least one identity proof of customers registered with them, too.