Public Transport’s Future: Electric Cycles with Onboard Tablets?

Denmark is currently unveiling a new bike-share program that may reshape intercity public transportation. Really.

The old-fashioned-looking bikes actually are equipped with electric motors; they’re fitted and on-board tablets and cost 25 Danish kroner ($4.50) an hour, about half the price to access one of New York’s Citibikes.

The city is beginning with 250 new “GoBikes,”with 20 docking stations. Pulling it all together is a program is funded by the Danish train company Danske Statsbaner (DSB), the city of Copenhagen, and the city of Frederiksberg, which is near Copenhagen.

It is expected that Copenhagen will approve an expansion of the plan, which is anticipated by the end of the summer. At that point, there will be 1,860 white electric bikes plying the streets of Copenhagen.

Some are asking: Why electric bikes? And why risk attaching an expensive tablet to something that lives outside, exposed to rain, snow, and possible theft?

After careful study in a city known for its bike culture, it determined that GoBikes should be attractive to people who may not be used to cycling—such as tourists and suburbanites.

Thus, the program is really as an extension of public transport. People who commute into Copenhagen don’t bring their bikes with them, so they would be big beneficiaries of the program.

Tourists can also use the bikes to explore the city more extensively.

And get this: The tablets are there not just cool, they provide GPS, maps and incentives to use certain docking stations when others are full.

Category: General Update