With an aim to promote bike culture and decongest the city, Smart city Bhopal will launch a Public Bike Sharing (PBS) project in March for which 500 GPS-enabled bicycles have been imported from Germany, a media report said.
The authorities have also built 50 docking stations and two six-km-long red tracks to facilitate unhindered bike movement in the city, the Indian Express reported. People who register for this project will be able to use these imported bicycles for fee.
The bikes can be picked up and dropped off at any of the 50 docking stations. A central control room has also been created to monitor the availability of bicycles. Three distribution vans will move them from one station to another to ensure availability. In the first phase of the project, two five metres wide cycling tracks will be used with the existing BRT corridor in between.
In the long term, the tracks will run through full 24-km BRT stretch from Misrod to Bairagarh on the outskirts of Bhopal. The tracks have been painted red so that they are clearly visible, the report said.. As a part of multi-lane smart road, another dedicated track will come up from Polytechnic junction to Bharat Mata Square.
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had set a deadline of nine-month target to finish the job. This Bhopal PBS project is a part of the centre’s multiple Smart City proposals, started with a capital cost of Rs 2.95 crore.
The project plans to raise operating costs of Rs 6.7 lakh per month from its registered membership, rental income, advertisement revenue, sponsorship contracts, parking fee and, among others.
