Bike boom gets into top gear in Poland
PR dla Zagranicy
Peter Gentle
12.08.2014 09:10
City bike rental systems are becoming increasingly popular in Poland with new cities about to be added to the scheme which began in Warsaw in 2012.
Warsaw's 'Veturilo' system has been a huge success since being launched two years ago: photo - CC/wikipedia
The rental of a bicycle from a publicly available system is already possible in eight major Polish cities and some smaller towns.
Warsaw's 'Veturilo' system is the biggest hub with 2,700 vehicles available in 176 spots, in a scheme reminiscent of the 'Boris Bikes' in London.
Other cities, such as Wroclaw, Krakow, Poznan and Bialystok have smaller networks.
Later this year city bikes will also be made available in Lublin and Szczecin. Next year, Bydgoszcz and Lodz are on the agenda.
Nextbike Polska, which operates rental systems in eight locations, has recently said it has registered more than 300,000 users since the start of its first bike station in 2011, or one city biker for every 128 Poles.
The number of rentals at Netbike stations in Poland has surpassed 4.5 million.
“There is a boom for cycling in Poland. An increasing number of people declare that cycling is their basic means of transportation,” said Tomasz Wojtkiewicz, president of Nextbike Polska.
The company's bicycles are most popular in Warsaw (205,437 users), Wroclaw (57,694 users) and Bialystok (57,694 users). (kw/pg)
source: Rzeczpospolita