Making India Bike Curious?

A Public Bicycle Share (PBS) is a communal transit service consisting of a network of strategically located bicycle hubs, available for shared use on a short-term basis. PBS schemes facilitate the borrowing of a bicycle from one hub with the expectation of its return at another hub within the network. Such systems have been in operation in over 600 cities around the world: Paris’s ‘Velib’, London’s ‘Santander bicycles’, Mexico City’s ‘Ecobici’ and Hangzhou’s ‘Hangzhou Public Bicycle’, all providing sustainable commuting options.

India’s first city-wide PBS system was launched on June 4, 2017 in the heritage city of Mysuru in Karnataka. Called ‘Trin Trin’, after the sound of bicycle metal bells, it consists of a network of 52 docking stations and 450 rentable bicycles across the city. The introduction of a public bicycle system may seem ironic in a country where bicycle riding remains dominant among the colossal lower economic demographic. Yet its implementation represents an important and timely transit planning initiative within India’s current socio-economic realities.

Over the past two decades, India’s economy has grown by more than 200% and the number of automobiles have significantly increased due to a rising and prospering middle class. Simultaneously, the country has seen a growing interest in progressive and sustainable urbanism due to increased awareness of progressive transit trends globally, as well as innovative planning ideas by younger foreign-educated professionals who have returned home. 

India’s first Public Bicycle Sharing System must therefore be seen as the beginnings of a campaign on alternative and progressive ways of urban living. 

It represents, on the one hand, a revival of traditional Indian ideas of sustainability and modesty, and on the other, a realisation of the debacles of Western automobile-dominated planning that has destroyed cities across the world.

Vision and funding

The Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT) has the mandate of planning, designing and facilitating the implementation of sustainable mobility solutions in urban centres in Karnataka, which is the seventh largest state in terms of area and eighth largest in terms of population. DULT has been focused on the revival of a cycling culture in the state’s urban areas. In 2012, it offered support to a modest pilot public bicycle share project on Bengaluru’s famous Mahatma Gandhi Road to understand the concept’s workings. Subsequently, the directorate commissioned a feasibility study for a public bicycle sharing system in the city of Mysuru.

Mysuru was a candidate for India’s inaugural public bicycle share system for several reasons: It is a small city with a population of 0.9 million relative to Karnataka’s largest metropolis Bengaluru with 10 million people; this makes Mysuru’s traffic significantly more manageable. 

Mysuru is a heritage city attracting a sizeable number of tourists, both from within and outside India. It also has a reasonably good cycling culture with 17% cycling mode share and 3.36 kilometer average trip length. Additionally, DULT had prepared a comprehensive traggic and transportation plan for Mysuru, and the implementation of a public bicycle sharing system was part of this plan’s overall vision.

The total cost of the Mysuru PBS was estimated at Rs.20.52 crore, including the capital, operations and maintenance for a period of five and a half years. The feasibility study however concluded that a public bicycle sharing system in Mysuru would not be able to sustain itself on revenues generated from user charges or advertisements alone. The State had to step in with funding to meet expenditure requirements. Through the directorate, the state submitted a proposal to the Central Government to avail a Global Environmental Facility (GEF) grant under the Government of India’s World Bank assisted Sustainable Urban Transport Programme (SUTP). Following approvals, national tenders were invited in 2015 and the work order was issued in January 2016. The available GEF funding was Rs.10.4 crore. To ensure that implementation would not suffer due to funding, DULT earmarked a corpus amount of Rs.3 crore from the State Urban Transport Fund and also successfully negotiated a Rs.2 crore contribution from the Mysuru City Corporation to the PBS to meet operation and maintenance costs.

From concept to launch

Being the first city-wide bicycle sharing system anywhere in India, the Mysuru PBS had no national precedent or any example to draw upon for its planning, designing and implementation. There had been a bicycle sharing initiative for select metro stations in Bengaluru’s Central Business District in 2012, but this system had limited application for Mysuru’s city-wide networked system. The Mysuru bicycle sharing scheme’s concept and components had to be thought of from scratch, applying and adapting international best practices to Indian realities.

Ideas through a ‘Monsoon Studio’

In August 2015, DULT initiated the ‘Monsoon Studio’ (named after the August rains in India.) DULT staff and consultants engaged in a three-day workshop with architecture students and faculty from the University of Mysuru to generate urban design and planning ideas for the Mysuru PBS. The idea was to exchange local knowledge from Mysuru residents with professional expertise towards a common vision. The results were reviewed and documented and helped generate a broad planning and urban design framework for the project’s implementation.

Finding an operator

The PBS tender received few responses. There were no operators in India ready to take up this novel effort. Finally, a local team from Green Wheel Ride, met with the required qualifications, and were appointed as the system operator. The DULT team, the Mysuru City Corporation and Green Wheel Ride deliberated on the PBS’s feasibility at every stage of design and implementation to root it to Mysuru’s urban conditions.

Estimating the project’s potential

Mysuru’s comprehensive citywide traffic and transport plan suggested that 17% of the city’s vehicular trips occur via bicycles. The short existing two-wheeler trip lengths were encouraging for the PBS, as a quarter of these trips could potentially be shifted to bicycles. If made attractive the city would potentially have around 39% of trips by bicycles. 

To gauge the project’s feasibility within these statistics, DULT prepared a detailed project report focusing on existing traffic patterns, trip origins, eventual destinations and existing non-motorised transport infrastructure facilities such as cycle tracks. City streets were documented and studied and 28.8 kilometres of this street network was identified as the framework for the PBS.

Locating docking stations

Per international best practices, an ideal public bicycle sharing system should be a closely knit network of docking stations. A user should be able to find a station every 250 to 500 metres within the city. These distances ensure that the bicycles are not rented for longer durations and also make them more visible for the user.

In Mysuru, docking stations are located at every 300 to 500 metres ensuring that they do not obstruct pedestrian movement on the sidewalks. Their locations cover major destinations including tourist spots, government offices and major urban centres, as well as the city railway station and bus stands. The system is currently spread over a 28 square kilometre area (a quarter area of the city), with 52 docking stations containing a total of 450 bicycles.

Designing docking stations

The stations are simple and sparse in design, with most of the larger ones having roof shelters. The typical station consists of an information panel, backlit advertisement panel, kiosk, docking ports and bicycles. The entire system also has six registration centres and six Mysuru One centres across the city, where users can avail the Trin-Trin Smart Card.

Selecting the bicycle model

The Request for Proposals (RFP) for bicycle models included specifications based on bicycle sharing systems across the world. The models had to be unisex bicycles with a robust build, good riding quality and other safety features. Bids were evaluated based on the bicycle model specifications proposed by the operators against the standards prescribed in the RFP to ensure quality control.

Customising technology for security

The Mysuru PBS system follows the typical international third generation bicycle sharing systems model of incorporating automated technologies. Software and Smart Cards have been customised and staff has been recruited and trained in accordance with the specific requirements of this project. Thanks to this, the bicycles can be locked at the docking port and opened only if a user taps the Trin-Trin card on the port. The entire system is unmanned and secure.

Trial runs

Numerous pilot tests and trial runs were conducted over a two-month period prior to the launch. During these efforts, every component was tested and security levels checked to make the system theft proof. Since its launch, over a year ago, not a single theft case has been registered.

Marketing the PBS

Detailed plans were developed for marketing the system: The operator and the city corporation engaged in on-spot registrations at various schools, colleges and government offices to spread the word on the PBS, prior to its launch. Cyclothons and other events were organised to generate citizen awareness and interest. Coinciding with the launch, DULT organised the first ever Mysuru Cycle Day, building upon its success in the neighbouring city of Bengaluru (where 400 Cycle Days have been conducted in 38 neighbourhoods over the past five years).

The system in action

Since its launch, Trin Trin has seen more than 10,000 registrations. Recently the system saw its highest uptake rate: 3 rides/bicycle/day. 

The people of Mysuru appear to have embraced the PBS and the city is seeing a gradual increase in the number of users with every passing day. Members of the Mysuru Cycling Club have also endorsed the system. In 2017, during the 10th Urban Mobility India Conclave held in Hyderabad, Mysuru’s Trin Trin bagged a Special Award under the category of Non-Motorised Transport (NMT) Project instituted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

This initial excitement and optimism could be attributed to Mysuru’s 22% two-wheeler user base whose average trip lengths are around four kilometres per day. Trin Trin offers them a low cost, sustainable transport choice and attracts many kinds of users including students, especially from rural areas. Many students pick up bicycles from docking stations at the city and suburban bus stands or the city railway station and reach their schools and colleges skipping multiple bus changes. Mysuru’s clean streets, lower traffic speeds and overall civil traffic behaviour should also be noted as important contributors to the system’s initial success, particularly without the creation of segregated bicycle tracks.

That said, the tourist reception to the PBS has been relatively low, particularly since it covers only a quarter of the city area. The directorate is subsequently planning to expand the system to the entire city and eventually upgrading the PBS to the fourth generation dock-less public bicycle share model.

From pilot to precedent: Bengaluru’s PBS 

There are ongoing attempts to generate awareness and introduce public bicycle sharing systems in other larger Indian cities such as Bhopal, Pune and Delhi. 

These cities lack the critical mass of cyclists on most of their main roads now inundated by ever-increasing automobile numbers. Other challenges to PBS efforts include the absence of existing urban infrastructure, the lack of lane discipline and the potential safety hazards in adopting cycling as a dominant transit mode in crowded metropolitan Indian contexts. To respond to such apparent challenges, DULT launched the Cycle Day initiative in Bengaluru in October 2013 with like-minded organizations like Praja RAAG and ESAF to promote cycling throughout community engagement. Around 38 community partners have joined the directorate in organizing the Cycle Day in their neighbourhoods and the number is growing. With the initiatives popularity, many citizen organizations have started demanding better cycling infrastructure within the city.

In March 2017, DULT began planning a public bicycle sharing system in Bengaluru City Council in August 2018. Similar to Mysuru’s system, there will be intermittent docking systems with the city divided into demand-estimated clusters. The first phase is framed around two of the highest demand urban areas totaling 28 square kilometres, with 384 parking hubs (virtual docking stations) containing over 6000 bicycles. This will be the fourth generation dockless PBS system where the government will be regulating and facilitating multiple private operators with permits to operate the system within city limits. Three of these operators (YULU Bikes, Pedl Zoomcar and Mobycy) have already initiated pilot operations within the city and DULT has released funds to create cycling tracks in specific parts of the city. Building upon Mysuru’s success, there will soon be a Public Bicycle Sharing System in Bengaluru with 125 kilometres of cycle tracks throughout the city.

The promise of public bicycle share systems in India

With the Mysuru PBS expansion still being planned and the Bengaluru PBS first phase currently underway, it is clearly too early to gauge the promise of the PBS within the Indian context. The implementation of the Bengaluru PBS might in fact help shed light on what it truly means to have a functioning PBS within a mature Indian metropolis. Issues of vandalism and security will continue to be among the most significant concerns, necessitating the need for innovative and context-savvy monitoring mechanisms. An additional challenge will be the degree of bicycle appeal within the middle and upper class perceived status quo and this might trigger the need for additional tools to incentivise greater use of the PBS.

Yet, looking at both municipal initiatives and their general reception across the country, one could argue that India is gradually waking up to broader global trends of progressive urban planning. The central government’s push for Indian states and the cities to ensure the adoption of sustainable practice goals cannot be underestimated. State governments may be slow to change, but global pressures coupled with increasing municipal awareness on progressive planning practices will make a significant difference in this regard.

As the PBS concept matures across the world’s second most populous country, its role and relationships to the physical form of Indian cities will have to be studied and examined. 

To what degree will metropolitan Indian road standards need edits to embrace the full potential of this concept? How will land use regulations transform to embrace the PBS idea? How will urban design create new place types to celebrate these new transit nodes within the city?

It will also be imperative to understand the PBS’s deeper environmental and socio-economic potential. The success of the PBS cannot only serve to make India’s over-crowded and automobile-dominated streets physically safer, but also less toxic, reducing car fumes within the right-of-way. Additionally, the success of the PBS can serve as a catalyst for bridging perceived economic disparities, with the bicycle becoming the new status symbol for a progressive urban lifestyle across income groups and occupations. In this sense, the PBS must be understood as a progressive transit alternative, a planning tool for equitable city making and a public health initiative, all in one.

Acknowledgements
• All images are courtesy of DULT and have been published with their permission.
• Trin Trin’s vision was initiated by former Government of Karnataka, Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT) Comissioner V. Manjula, IAS, and taken forward by Darpan Jain, IAS and Murali Krishna, ITS (Special Officer.) 
• The Trin Trin-DULT technical team included Sourav Dhar (Senior Transport Planner), Shamanth Kuchangi (Technical Head), Sheeba Shetty (Urban Planner) Deeshma M. (GIS Specialist) and Narendra P. (Graphic Designer) 
• Urban Design explorations for the Mysuru PBS by DULT were done under the guidance of Los Angeles based urban designer Vinayak Bharne, through the Monsoon Studio workshop in collaboration with the architecture faculty and students from the University of Mysuru. 
• The Bengaluru PBS project team was led by Sonal Kulkarni (Senior Transport Planner), Nisha P. (Urban Planner), and Sourav Dhar with the entire DULT staff involved during the project’s planning and surveying phase.