Is the Vélib 'service over-revving?
The metropolitan network of self-service bicycles now has 400,000 subscribers, who carry out nearly 200,000 races per day in this fall.
All this with a fleet of 19,500 bicycles, 40% of which are electrically assisted, spread over the 1,400 stations provided for in the contract between the operator Smovengo and the Autolib 'Vélib' Métropole (SAVM) union.
But these record figures hide a less glowing reality: the over-use of the fleet of bicycles today poses logistical and operational difficulties that affect reliability and quality of service.
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While the bicycle boom is set to last beyond the Covid-19 crisis, the current infrastructure appears undersized.
Do we need to increase the Vélib 'fleet to meet a growing demand?
This is what Stéphane Volant, the new president of Smovengo, suggests.
Appointed in July, this former secretary general of the SNCF group went to meet the new elected officials of Greater Paris, who will have to decide the future of Vélib within the SAVM.
It delivers to the Parisian its ambitions for what is already one of the largest shared bicycle systems in the world.
Does Smovengo now keep the promises of his contract?
Stéphane Volant.
Yes.
The contract is for 19,000 bicycles, we are now at 20,000. This figure is the result of incredible logistics which are at the heart of Smovengo's know-how.
This is why the quality of service is improving very markedly.
Our bikes are now better equipped, with better tires, better saddles etc., because Vélib 'is a product in perpetual transformation.
Stéphane Volant was appointed president of Smovengo, the operator of Vélib ', in July.
DR
What indicators allow you to say that reliability is improving?
Customer confidence is gained in drops and lost in liters.
And the SAVM ensures that the extremely rigorous quality of service indicators that appear in our contract are met.
And when they haven't been in the past, they cost Smovengo tens of millions of euros.
We had zeros, we had hours of glue, and that's why today we work better.
There are thus 500 people who work at Smovengo to increase the quality due to customers and today, two figures do not lie: there is the demand for Vélib ', with averages of 200,000 trips per day since the start of the month of september.
It's colossal!
And the number of subscribers (400,000).
Vélib 'users are more numerous, they go further, more often, earlier and later in the evening.
We can therefore say that they show their confidence in us but that this confidence remains fragile because the quality of service is gained every day.
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VIDEO. Paris, a European cycling capital, like Copenhagen?
BICLOU [17/48] - Can Paris become Copenhagen?
With its 50 km of temporary cycle paths, Paris is transforming to become a more cycling city.
To the point of looking like Copenhagen one day?
Not that easy…
Gepostet von Le Parisien am Samstag, 29. August 2020
Is this huge demand causing overuse problems?
Yes.
That is why we need more bicycles.
Today, the batteries of electrically assisted bicycles (VAE) are over-used, from early in the morning until late tonight.
The risk is therefore of not being able to meet the expectations of Vélib 'users.
We have to anticipate this with our client, the SAVM, to know how many more electric bikes we will need in the months and years to come.
But I believe that elected officials wish to support this desire for electric bikes.
What are your long term goals as president?
What I am aiming for is to improve the service to be able to reach a million subscribers within five years.
It is not impossible because we are witnessing a revolution in uses.
This was not predictable when we signed the contract
(entered into force on January 1, 2018, editor's note)
.
We must therefore readjust our service upwards, to align it with the requirements of customers of today and tomorrow.
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This would mean doubling the Vélib 'offer, in other words increasing to 3,000 stations and 40,000 bicycles ...
At SAVM and at Smovengo we are thinking about it. Many elected officials from the last municipal election made strong promises in terms of cycle paths, in Paris and in the metropolis. Smovengo, which is the partner of Paris and the cities of the metropolis, intends to keep these promises. We have know-how, data, teams… We must try to foresee the unforeseeable and imagine the mobility needs in five years. Will the station be the same as today? What will customers need? Will it take a sophisticated connected bike, or rather crude and robust? Will the mechanical bicycle be dead? We are now working on all these questions to be, ourselves, the committed actors of the mobility revolution. As partners, we must advise our clients and listen to them. Only elected officials are legitimate in saying what the inhabitants of Paris and the metropolis want and, in the end, it is the SAVM that decides.