Joy riders give Paris bike share system a flat

Paris's Velib' bike-sharing strategy is fashionable among residents, tourists and thieves. Photo: Ludovic MARIN / AFP/File
Source: AFP

Paris's nationalist motorcycle sharing system, Velib, is losing much than 600 bicycles per week to joyousness riders, threatening to overwhelm the strategy and leaving users frustrated, its relation said Thursday.

"At the moment, we're missing 3,000 bikes" retired of the fleet of immoderate 20,000 regular and electrical bicycles, said Sylvain Raifaud, caput of the Agemob institution that presently operates the Velib system.

While vandalism has ever been a problem, Raifaud said that for the past period the fig of bikes disappearing had astir tripled to 640 per week.

Agemob believes vandals person learned however to pry the bikes escaped from stands. They past joyousness thrust them until an automatic fastener is triggered aft 24 hours, astatine which constituent they wantonness them.

The problem: "We don't cognize wherever the bikes are, they don't person GPS chips," Raifaud told AFP.

The fig of bikes going missing has astir tripled successful caller weeks. Photo: JOEL SAGET / AFP/File
Source: AFP

He appealed for section authorities to assistance it find the bikes.

The deficiency of specified a ample fig of bikes leaves Velib struggling to fulfill users.

"The remaining bikes are being utilized overmuch much and are much worn out," said Raifaud. That besides meant the batteries of electrical bikes did not person capable clip to recharge.

"This has resulted successful full stations with unusable bikes" leaving "users precise frustrated", helium added.

Launched successful 2007, Velib bikes were utilized for 49.3 cardinal trips past year. Raifaud said ridership had been increasing, with May's figures up by 16 percent implicit past year.

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Source: AFP