Three years after govt launched PBS, bicycles extinct from Bengaluru roads

More than three years after the government promoted the Public Bicycle Sharing (PBS) system, citizens interested to explore Non-Motorised Transport (NMT) are unable to find even a single bicycle.

In 2017, the government’s Department of Urban Land Transport (DULT) gave a fillip to NMT by inviting private players to run PBS under the liberal licence regime. When Bounce, Ofo and Yulu began operating PBS in 2018, officials considered it an encouraging sign in terms of improving the first- and last-mile connectivity in the city.

But revenue generation and widespread vandalism of the bicycles proved to be major hurdles for the programme to take off in a big way, an official said. “It dawned on the companies that people didn’t care for the hired bicycles. It was obvious from the careless way they used the vehicles and even vandalised them, which discouraged the companies. This could have changed through awareness creation, but the revenue gap was something companies couldn’t accept.”

While hiring a bicycle costs Rs 20 for half an hour, using an electric vehicle would cost Rs 60 to Rs 130. “Even the meagre revenue flows slowly. It’s little wonder that companies that got licences for PBS slowly shifted to electric vehicles."

Ofo has shut down its operations, while Bounce limited itself to hiring motor vehicles and stopped the PBS operations altogether. As for Yulu, despite the app offering bicycle as an option, finding one in any of the Yulu zones has become a rare accomplishment for commuters.

DH’s reality check showed six bicycles in Vidhana Soudha and Raj Bhavan, five in the whole of Koramangala and 10 more spread across different areas. In reality, the bicycles were rare to find.

DH spoke to Yulu CEO Amit Gupta to understand if his company is following other players in shifting to electric vehicles called 'Miracle'. Gupta said the company continues to provide bicycles. "We have deployed about 2,500 bicycles that are still part of the PBS system. But we’ve found that Miracle’s usage rate is two times more than the bicycle. A number of factors, including weather, may be prompting commuters to pick Miracle over the bicycle.”

He said the pandemic holted the company’s effort to introduce more bicycles. “We’re looking to introduce 10,000 more vehicles, including bicycles, in the next two months,” Gupta said, reiterating Yulu’s commitment to PBS.

Bengaluru’s bicycle mayor Sathya Sankaran, who is working closely with DULT in enhancing the PBS system in the city, said public transport providers such as the metro should encourage PBS.

“Leaving PBS to private companies would be feasible when the government brings in more riders,” he said. This can be done, for instance, by offering discounts on bus and metro fares for commuters using PBS for the first and last mile. The increased revenue (that way) would encourage companies to bolster their PBS services.”

Sankaran said such measures are crucial, especially after the DULT opened up the whole city for PBS against the previous regime of offering the companies selected clusters to choose from.