The revamped Mol Bubi bike-sharing scheme launched in Budapest on Monday, with electric bicycles now available as part of a larger fleet than before.
Upgraded Mol Bubi launched after months of interim period
At the presentation of the new-generation Mol Bubi, Gergely Karácsony, the mayor of Budapest, said Mol Bubi 3.0 would be better than its predecessors both in quality and in quantity, the Hungarian news agency wrote. “There will be far more bicycles available in far more places, the bikes will be easier to ride, and the Mol Bubi app will also be much more user-friendly,” the mayor said.
Mr Karácsony said the bike-sharing system helps Budapest and its residents to “rely on our own, most natural resources”, precisely at a time when we are experiencing just how fragile the world around us is.
Ádám Bodor, deputy chief executive for mobility at the Budapest Transport Centre (BKK), said the “green bikes are a step towards a greener Budapest”. It was very important for the BKK that as many people as possible should choose sustainable modes of transport, he added.
He said the renewed bike-sharing scheme is launching with 2,000 bicycles, 500 of them electric-assist. That figure will rise “very quickly”: there will be 3,300 bikes in the system, including 800 electric ones. Mol Bubi now also has a better app, Mr Bodor said. He noted that the scheme is currently available across around 40 square kilometres. The aim is for it to be available across 80 square kilometres of Budapest, at every public transport hub where more than 30,000 people change, he said.
New operator has experience from two continents
Péter Pantl, MOL’s communications and marketing director, recalled that the company has been the naming sponsor and strategic partner of the capital’s bike-sharing system since 2014. It had been good to see how the quality of the service had changed over the years, how the range of services had expanded, and how much digitisation had made Bubi easier to use, he said.
Representing Mastercard, the digitalisation partner of the bike-sharing system, Balázs Györffy, business development director for Hungary and Slovenia, said digital payment makes it easy to use Budapest’s transport services. He expressed hope that they could contribute to a “greener and more digital” transport system in Budapest.
Damien Vander Heyden, business development director at Inurba Mobility, the new operator of Mol Bubi, said the company runs bike-sharing services on two continents — Europe and South America — in six countries. Across the city, there are already new mobile points that are entirely virtual. No physical intervention is needed to create them, so the system will expand very rapidly this year and next, he said.
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The number of bicycles continues to increase
According to the BKK, the number of bicycles will continue to increase after the live launch. The plan is that by 2027 there will be 5,000 new bicycles available across an expanded area, with denser coverage and many more pick-up points. The company’s aim is for the system eventually to operate with as many as 8,000 bicycles, if funding is available, providing even wider territorial coverage and better access for Budapest residents, it said.
It also noted that nearly 9,000 users tested the system during the trial run. The BKK continually collected feedback, and the testers played a major part in fine-tuning the service. The BKK said Inurba Mobility’s contract, awarded through a public tender, runs for five years and can be extended by a further 18 months.
After downloading the new app, anyone can use the revamped bike-sharing system on a per-minute basis or with a monthly or annual pass available at a favourable price. For those with a pass in BudapestGO, the classic bicycles are available at a discounted rate. The first 100 annual pass purchasers will receive a bespoke Mol Bubi sweatshirt as a gift, according to the BKK statement.
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Awesome.
More randomly discarded bicycles. More idiots running red lights. More douchebags cycling on sidewalks and the wrong way down a street, but now with much heavier and faster vehicles.
One of these turds has been languishing on the Istvanmezei ut edge of the Reiner Frigyes park for two weeks. I’m just waiting for this infernal sun to explode the battery one day.
Who asked for this???