Helsinki City Bikes (

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

: ''Kaupunkipyörät'' or ''Alepa-fillarit'',

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

: ''Stadscyklar'') is a public bicycle system in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

and

Espoo Espoo (, ; sv, Esbo) is a city and municipality in the region of Uusimaa in the Republic of Finland. It is located on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland, bordering the cities of Helsinki, Vantaa, Kirkkonummi, Vihti and Nurmijärvi ...

and integrating with the rest of the

public transport in Helsinki Public transport in Helsinki consists of bus, tram, metro, local railway and ferry services. The system is managed by Helsinki Region Transport (Finnish: ''Helsingin seudun liikenne'', or HSL) and covers Helsinki, Espoo, Kauniainen, Vantaa and th ...

since May 2016. It is operated as a public-private partnership between

Helsinki Regional Transport Authority The Helsinki Regional Transport Authority ( fi, Helsingin seudun liikenne, HSL; sv, Helsingforsregionens trafik, HRT) is the inter-municipal authority that maintains the public transportation network of the nine municipalities of Greater H ...

(HSL),

Helsinki City Transport Helsinki City Transport or HKL ( Finnish: ''Helsingin kaupungin liikennelaitos'', Swedish: ''Helsingfors stads trafikverk'', abbreviated to ''HST'') is the official city-owned public transport company in Helsinki, Finland. It operates the Helsin ...

(HKL), Espoo Technical and Environment Services, Moventia and

Smoove Smoove is a French company that designs, manufactures and markets products related to bike-sharing. The company produces lightweight bike stands that require virtually no civil engineering and no electricity. Bike stands The lock that is on t ...

History

The City of

had similar bike share program to

Copenhagen City Bikes Copenhagen City Bikes or ''Bycykler København'' was the bicycle sharing system of Copenhagen, Denmark. Launched in 1995 with 1,000 cycles, the project was the world's first organized large-scale urban bike-sharing scheme, which, unlike its Dutch ...

(also cancelled) from 2000 until 2010 when it was terminated in owing to funding issues and ongoing vandalism that required costly repairs and replacement of bicycles. Since the demise of first City Bikes,

was negotiating with

JCDecaux Decaux Group (JCDecaux SA, ) is a multinational corporation based in Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris, France, known for its bus-stop advertising systems, billboards, public bicycle rental systems, and street furniture. It is the largest outdoor ...

Finland for a new bike share system. The system would have included 500 bikes and 34 stands in downtown Helsinki, modeled after the Paris

Vélib' is a large-scale public bicycle sharing system in Paris, France. Launched on 15 July 2007, the system encompassed around 14,500 bicycles and 1,400 bicycle stations, located across Paris and in some surrounding municipalities, with an average d ...

program, with part of the program costs to be paid by commercial businesses in exchange for 45 double-sided advertisement boards inside the city centre. However Helsinki could not agree places for advertisement boards and the deal was cancelled. In 2015 HKL made agreement with Moventia and Smoove about 2nd generation City Bikes and operation started in May 2016. During the first week of operation, the bikes were used 15 000 times, which amounted to more than 6 rides per bike per day. In first three weeks 43 000 trips were made with the bikes and system had 6 000 registered users. During the first season when 500 bikes were in operation users rode over 740 000 kilometers. After successful start

Helsinki metropolitan area Greater Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin seutu, Suur-Helsinki, Swedish: ''Helsingforsregionen'', ''Storhelsingfors'') is the metropolitan area surrounding Helsinki, the capital city of Finland. It includes the smaller Capital Region (''Pääkaupunkiseutu' ...

cities

and

Vantaa Vantaa (; sv, Vanda, ) is a city and Municipalities of Finland, municipality in Finland. It is part of the inner core of the Greater Helsinki, Finnish Capital Region along with Helsinki, Espoo, and Kauniainen. With a population of (), Vantaa i ...

are considering joining the Helsinki bike sharing system. Autumn 2016 Espoo decided to start pilot trial with Helsinki bikes in summer 2017. July 2017 system had 28 000 registered users for annual pass which is over double compared to 2016 season. Helsinki ranked first in the study made in 2019 about the popularity of city bikes in different cities around the world. In the study, the Helsinki City Bike System was compared with 50 cities around the world. Rate of use was used as a measure of popularity, ie the number of journeys made per bike per day.

Hubs and bikes

Helsinki's city bike system was opened in early May 2016 with 50 city bike stations (hubs) and 500 bikes serving the inner city area. The system was expanded for the 2017 season to 150 hubs and 1500 bikes, covering

Munkkiniemi Munkkiniemi ( sv, Munksnäs, Helsinki slang: ''Munkka'') is a neighbourhood in Helsinki. Subdivisions within the district are Vanha Munkkiniemi, Kuusisaari, Lehtisaari, Munkkivuori, Niemenmäki and Talinranta. The land in Munkkiniemi was from th ...

Pasila Pasila (; sv, Böle, ) is a part of Helsinki, Finland, that is both a central-northern neighbourhood and district, bordering the areas of Alppila to the south, the Central Park ( Keskuspuisto) to the west, and Vallila to the east. Pasila is ...

and

Kumpula Kumpula ( sv, Gumtäkt) is a verdant neighbourhood in Helsinki, bordered by Eastern Pasila to the west, Vallila to the south, Käpylä and Koskela to the north and Toukola and Arabianranta to the east. As of January 1, 2003, Kumpula had approxi ...

in addition to the inner city. For the 2018 season the system was expanded to Espoo, having 70 stations from May and 35 more to be added during the summer. And had altogether 2550 city bikes.

Rental system

The rental system is fully web-based. Unlike many other city bike systems, riders do not need to pick up a card to access the system. A rider can register for and pay for a daily, weekly or annual pass. The rider will be given a personal cyclist ID and a PIN code for unlocking a bike from any station. The locations of stations and information about bike availability can be accessed on HSL's

Journey Planner A journey planner, trip planner, or route planner is a specialized search engine used to find an optimal means of travelling between two or more given locations, sometimes using more than one transport mode. Searches may be optimized on differen ...

. A HSL Travel Card can be used instead of a cyclist ID. The pass entitles the user to an unlimited number of rides of up to 30 minutes. Extra charges apply for longer journeys. Bikes are available from April until 31 October, unlike many other public bicycle programs that are available throughout the year.

Financing and management

The Helsinki city bike system is procured by

. The contract has been made for 10 years for a total value of 12 950 000 euros. The bikes and bike stations are supplied by

, and Moventia is responsible for supplying the stations with bikes at even rates and for the upkeep of the bikes. Clear Channel Finland organizes project promotion and partnerships as a Moventia & Smoove subcontractor. Helsinki Cooperative Society Elanto’s (HOK-Elanto's) grocery store Alepa is the main cooperation partner of the city bike's and supports the system's implementation.

Integration with public transport

City bikes form a part of the overall public transport travel chain in Helsinki. The city bike stations, the availability of bikes and route information are included in the revised

Helsinki Region Transport The Helsinki Regional Transport Authority ( fi, Helsingin seudun liikenne, HSL; sv, Helsingforsregionens trafik, HRT) is the inter-municipal authority that maintains the public transportation network of the nine municipalities of Greater H ...

(HSL) on-line journey planner. The inclusion of city bikes in the public transport routing system is unique by worldwide standards. Locations of stations and information about bike availability is also available as

Open data Open data is data that is openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shared by anyone for any purpose. Open data is licensed under an open license. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-source)" movements ...

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

References

External links

City Bikes website

Helsinki City Bikes station locations

Helsinki city bike operator website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Helsinki City Bikes Public transport in Finland 2016 establishments in Finland Community bicycle programs Transport in Helsinki Bicycle sharing in Finland